Lies
by geraldineamoeba
Summary: A realistic AU for a Season 2 Blue Exorcist. Changes in the teens becoming adults, school classes, solving problems, exorcising demons, and lots of lies! Yukio & Rin develop feelings for one another, and the story of how it came to be. A true romance and story line canon combined into one. Warning: This involves Yukio x Rin. Don't like, don't read. I don't own Blue Exorcist.
1. Chapter 1

Gnarled pieces of wrought iron fence under his oxfords felt rigid against his soles, and a harsh numbness in his joints, caused from mysterious blue flames, blinding, floating around concrete rubble, rose like steam. Ethereal and translucent against his black trench, the flames whisked, as if an angelic blessing had just been bestowed upon him. The thin 15 year old loomed motionless, dazed, his spine arced over like a contorted branch, and confused at the presence of his fingers touching his cheeks, looking arthritic and sharply twisted, he felt also his fingernails mindlessly pressing, digging into his face. A dark wheezing seemed to slowly chuckle it's way up, not from his mouth, but the pit of his throat.

 _What's going on?_

His collared shirt, riddled in smoky streaks, made him panic, but instead of a hot, crackling, blazing whirlwind around him, the whole roof on fire, his hearing began to softly drone back from a vacuumed whirl to wailing wind and thunder. Confused and shivering, remembering the powerful blast that vaulted from the gray clouds above, he opened his eyelids wearily, and watched blood leak in circular droplets from his nose and disperse themselves into the pulsing puddles below his chin. Heavy rain, restraining against his own weight, made it a battle to get a stable elbow on the cobblestone beneath his torso, especially the jarring pain rocketing through his shoulder, like a knife prodding him. That's when he spied a figure, swaying, and after a couple seconds of blinking, wind wafting, he knew who it was.

 _Flames?_ A senseless, breathy voice came cracked from Rin's mouth, "Yukio?"

"Waaaa ha ha hah ha hah!" An odd laugh bellowed. Dazzling combustion brightened around the boy. Yukio's head crooked to the side, thick-framed glasses and the fluttering reflections of flames in them, appeared like square glowing orbs, as the head fully turned, slow, and gawked at him.

Corneas uncontrollably quivered, unable to concentrate, how they became when he was tired, and motioning to rub them, his arms wouldn't budge, but spying his image in a shattered piece of mirrored glass, he seen his form trapped in an utterly amusing and awkward position.

 _I must be in shock._

If only that were true. Stuck, teal eyes deadlocked, unfolding before him a forceful, grotesque animation began: razored teeth spreading across his jaw, and in response, an irrevocable and undefinable pain seared across his jowls. Pointed ears lengthening to that of a lycan, and a forehead full of crevices reshaping his young face, made his skin crawl, then heat, feeling like he was absolutely melting. A hollowed, frozen shriek of pain rung, the weight of the sensation sickening. Staring at parts that shouldn't shift become anthropomorphic made his stomach turn; taste something absolutely foul.

Rin's hands tremored, heart beating recklessly, lungs choking on puffs of air. He knew. It wasn't him, it wasn't his twin brother. "YUKIO! No!"

As his cries abruptly lessened, his mind racing began to cease, he clinched his eyes shut in terror, and he realized his mouth wasn't even open. He had heard himself screech out in pain? Hadn't he? Eyelids, thrown open, he seen. 'It' smiled at Yukio through the water-pooled reflection.

 _No! No... I'm possessed!_ And all went dark, monstrosity had replaced him.

The head snapped, catapulting the chin high, a tongue siphoned out to lick blood off split lips, sniffing air, holding palms out to feel the rain pulsing on skin. "Oh you poor poor boy. Your brother, well, he isn't here anymore, and I'm, well, I'm just not sure what to tell you, ha ha, right now, but my darling, I never thought I'd feel the rain again, and oh, oh my does it feel, sensual?

"You... YOU SNAKE! Get out of him!" Bon yelled across the mangled cherry limbs, broken from trees in the garden. Hiding by the corner stairs leading to the library below, he could feel his insides shriveling, lips chapping up, he was afflicted. What could he do? He wanted to do what he could to help get his professor back, no matter how long he had waited for it to show up again; that lucent fire. Even if the odds were against them, but it wasn't safe.

"Aww my poor Rin, my little Rin," All it's attention on him with a voice so profound, "Le'me tell you, Yukio, ha hah ha, is so very interesting." The wicked face was becoming clearer, the eyebrows widening, sharper.

"Leave, leave him alone!" Rin screeched over the sheets of drizzle in anger, he knew it could hear him, "You don't know him... you'll, you've never loved him the way I do!"

"Love? Hmm. Loveeeeee. Ha ha... oh love, precious love... Yukio fears you more than, he loves you." It grinned.

Rin's throat hitched. "That's not true! Y... you're... YOU'RE LYING!"

"Oh yes. Yes. I see it now, wah ha ha (chuckle), oh dear, oh what a spectacle of a life your brother's lived," it shook it's head, "always being the 'watcher', there to control you. Or shall I say it? Waaa hah hah ha! How delightful!"

Bitten by the succulence of the voice, horrid, and icy, that comment made him stop dead in his tracks from trying to pick himself back up. His heavy breathing became apparent through his shirt, which was drenched to where it was practically see-through.

The creature was becoming more lively in it's actions, swinging it's arms like a merry child. "The very reason he became an exorcist; to make sure poor Rinny didn't mess things up." The tone deepened, it rumbled and a sadistic toothy grin shined on it's face, "To put a bullet in that little raven head of yours, in case, ha haha haaa," it shook in irony, wiping a small fake tear away from it's eye, stepping over some of the pieces of debris, "In case, ha ha, you, ha haha, turned out evil!" It erupted in laughter.

Small lines of heat began flowering in the corners of his eyes, and all he could do was whimper, "Not true. Not true."

Bon gasped, watching his weakened friend, hands over ears. He knew it had snapped one of the sticks of Rin's back with that remark, and that it was chipping away at his loving heart on the inside. "SHUT UPPPPP!", a loud, furious timbre, overtook him. He was Rin's rival, but he wasn't about to let him get beat while he was down, especially not in this situation.

He heard a cry, which shook him, from what seemed like a daze. _Where is everyone?_ All he could see was black, his eyes were closed. Another voice, sallow, familiar.

"Oh yes, he hates you. Never allowed to live a normal childhood because of you, you imp. You're pathetic, not even strong enough to hold your dear old daddy!"

"You're not my father!" Rin fought back, "Shiro Fugimoto was our father!"

"Aw, but blood is what blood is my dear."

Mumbles from somewhere, sounded like people were talking while he was underwater.

"Yukio! I know you're in there! Can you hear me?!" Bon shouted so deafening it made his own ears hurt, he was sick of this game.

Rin joined, "Please, Yukio!", begging in a hysterical rage, forcing himself on his feet. He had to fight.

Bon slunk out from behind a contorted frame of metal and concrete to run to his classmate's aid.

"NOOOO! BON!" Shima shrieked. His pink headed comrade concealed with him, nearly toppled over himself, lunging, just missing a grasp on his uniform jacket to yank him back.

"I'm sick of your chihuahua..." It merely changed glance to the sprinting Bon, "get back."

With a flick of the index finger, he was flipped backwards by an invisible force, his rosary flung from his wrist, busting, beads flying all directions, choking his air off. He landed in a heap. Wheezing, he feebly propped himself up, "Where's Yukio, you... you son of a bitch." A patch of red felt warm on his side against the storm and his tattered uniform, filled of streaming blood, down strips of wet fabric like a sponge sucking up dishwater, slow, slick. Some of his silver cartilage earrings had melted out, and he winced to sit up, looking stunned.

"Bon, get... get out of here. You'll get killed." Rin softly said, as they were aside one another closely, rain pounding, Rin, burned also, had toppled to a muddy flowerbed. The pain afflicted upon him was causing the loss of too much blood.

He had felt the power, the heat, Bon nodded, and nervous, the bigger adolescent scrambled to his feet, and limped back to 'safety'. Self-awareness became clear, he wasn't strong enough, he wasn't a demon, he wouldn't live through it. With all the training, all the hardship, it still hadn't been enough. His arrogance, all for not, what was he thinking? Valor couldn't save Rin, couldn't save Yukio.

"He never thought he would get my powers, all given to you at birth, had to be, but no! Oh, silly Yukio, my genes are better than that! Test tubes turning black... he knew my child, he was becoming one of us. Oh my, oh no! A demon! Himself!" It smiled, continuing it's narrative, striding carelessly towards Rin, tossing Bon back like a chew-toy was nothing to it, "Like his big, twin brother. And he hid it from you."

 _I'm, I'm stuck, I can't move._ _Who is that?_

 _Yukio was turning? He told me...? He was lying..._

"The pulse different, I could smell it, hear it, the boy 's blood was becoming absolutely languid! Those deep powers, one teensy doorcreak at a time," It talked using hands expressionlessly, "All it took, was just a little push." It neared Rin. "If anything, I did Yukio a favor, ha haha, shedding years and training off of his shoulders. Oh wait, but, hmm, his body, it's mine now. Mine mine mine. And so, well, never mind, wha hah aha haha!" Wickedly snarling. It played.

The underwater hum cleared. He wailed, _"Satan!"_

Satan loomed over Rin at an irregular angle for a human body to be. The pale boy began weeping like trapped kitten, trembling and rained on, tossed in the muck.

"Oh are you sad, because your brother lied to you? Yukio... oh my dear, dear boy. Yukio is a liar." Satan mocked Rin by bringing a fist to an eye as if wiping a tear for a second time.

 _No. I'm not a liar. It's not like that!_ He grunted at the weight of the shadow over his eyes.

"I've been nothing but honest with you, you seeeeee, I know who I am my beloved little devil, no lying there, I am who I am! So," It got down on it's knees, grabbed his collar, without Rin's body leaving the ground, to bring him closer to the face, nose to nose, it whispered, "why don't you just come along boy, one time offer, you and I, Assiah, the world of humans, will be ours. What do you think my little Rinny?" Hot breath smelled like sulfur.

 _NOOOO!_ He growled and grunted, an invisible force binding him.

"Aww poor Yukio didn't like that comment! Wha ha hah! He's absolutely raging in there!"

Rin started mourning even more, he didn't know what else to do. "No, no Yukio, you're stronger (cough), you're stronger than this."

"Oh ha...he's in there. I made sure of it, so he can hear your defeat. So he knows he's lost, that his fears, have become real. That you become my personal little bigot, my uncontrollable wench. I know you have a hard time controlling those flames of yours. I know. I can see in your brother's head now." The heat of Satan's cerulean flames had been turned off, even though they still flared outwards with a tremendous force. It wanted Yukio broken. It wanted Rin, worse.

"No... (Cough)" Blood trickled out of his mouth, "I'm not yours to... t... to control. I'm not your... any anything." His shaggy hair was matted to his forehead, drenched, his face an absolute busted mess. Rin lit his own blue flames in an attempt to get it back, a feeble attempt to get it away, a last hope, but he was too weak to heat them.

Satan laughed, entertaining himself watching Rin's sharp demon fangs knash and his black thin tail whip anemically. "How pretty, your blood is... everywhere!" Satan launched the opposite hand at Rin's neck, caught it, and forced his skull into the ground.

He exhaled more blood out of his mouth, trying to reach for his sword, the Kurikara.

"Out of reach you little bug." It cooed.

"L... Le... Let me g go." _Can't breath._ Rin was choking to death, his deep blue eyes widening, air was no where. His body writhed violently. Clawing. None bothered the stronger.

"You denied my offer, so... now I will just have to let poor Yukio listen to your screams, as you burn in the furnace."

 _No, no. No! You can't do this, YOU CAN'T!_

"I can hear him now, poor 'ol Yukio... 'yuki, yuki', so torn up." It licked lips, mocking Rin's nickname for his twin brother.

Rin at that moment, gurgling under pressure, lips going numb, he looked dead into the coal pits Satan's eyes, as if looking for Yukio's soul, he wanted his last breath to be where his brother was, trapped with him on the inside, inside the pit that Satan pushed him into inside himself. There maybe he could find him. He began whimpering and writhing.

 _Come on, COME ON!_

He was scared, he felt the hand warming up around his neck, ever so slowly, Satan was going to savor every moment of burning him.

"Yu... Yuk... pl... plea..." Then he started murderously shaking and violently going into a hazed shock, his lips white.

 _NOOO RINNNN!_ Nothing would stop him. He shook. He screamed. He tugged violently.

"Wha haha, ha, ha... touching, touching, I'm simply savoring this mo... mome... momen."

 _I am... I have... inherited powers."_ He yanked. _"I'm... I'm: a demon!"_ Something snapped, like a chain, metallic, and lurching forwards, he felt a force somewhere inside... burning.

The mouth clinched, and contorted in a quick twist, "Wha? What?"

Rin felt the fingers spasm around his neck, each joint quivering on it's own like they all were thinking something different.

"You... Y.. You let go of him!" Yukio's voice rang out. Rin's busted mouth opened, lips hanging wryly, eyes swirling in a dream of thick pain. He felt a small trickle of warmth rush back into his face. _That's it Yuk. You're the strong one, the trained one: the exorcist._ He lumped under the hand.

"Give... it... up brat." The back lurched backwards into an arch, and the grip then gaped enough to allow Rin to topple to the ground, and fall with a soft splash in a puddle of his own blood. The eyes, had a striking, abrupt pang of emotion wipe through them like a finger across a dusty window: anger, sadness... fear.

"What... what did y... you... do to him?!" Any outsider wouldn't have thought twice that this figure was a madman: arms flailed in an uneven manner, head savagely shaking, barbarous growls, an intrinsic fight ensued.

"Ha haha, you st... st... stupid boy." Satan slithered, "You can't... win." The heat began going down.

"Rin... h... hold..."

"Y... you...bitch!" Growling, snarling.

"I'm... gu..." The body on the knees rocked.

"Hold me down!"

Rin with his last strength grabbed, pulled himself up Yukio's body, like a shaky, trembling baby animal, using his own body weight to anchor Yukio's skinny body to sit as best he could, even though he was just as thin as his brother, and he felt so ill, so cold.

"Both... of... y...you. Trash!" Head shaking, mouth spitting.

Rin writhed back and forth from the body shaking hostily. A vocal growl from Yukio sounded.

"Yu... Yukio. You can do it." Rin, his arms wrapped around his twin's torso, fingers wrenched deep into his trench coat like a life raft. Weak.

"R... Ri... Ri..." Yukio rumbled, "Rin... I ha... have him."

 _I knew he could!_

"Rin, h... help me. Damn it."

He looked up then, shivering, the irises behind lens the smallest they've been the whole time. Yukio wouldn't say that, he wouldn't curse.

"H... how?" Yukio needed help? He was the one that couldn't learn anything, the one that couldn't do things right, that fell asleep in class, how could he help? Yukio was his professor, his own brother, his professor in three of his Cram School classes!

Yukio uttered the words that drained color from Rin's handsome face: "Stab me."

"No..." He cried. "Yuki, no no... no... I can't." He babbled, whispering, "No, that's not gunna... nooo Yukio!" He shouted with his last strong breath, "You can fight him, I know you... (sob)... Yuki... you can, you can get him. Yukio, you can..."

Bon had heard it, and so had Shima. They watched the twins, Rin holding onto the other in the rain, helplessly. They stood frozen like pillars, staring. Shima's lids welled up with tears, Bon's hand on his back. Yukio was sacrificing himself, and there was nothing they could do.

An invisible power wobbled the golden-handled Kurikara, towards them. The samurai sword almost wiggled in the downpour towards the boys. Satan gurgled violently, unintelligible words mouthing in Yukio's throat.

Shaky hands, grabbed the blade hopelessly, and Yukio caressed Rin's face, "... he's gaining... str.. strength." Yukio felt heat in his eyes, contrast against the chilled rain pouring down, and as his brother and him touched foreheads, knuckles tight from the grip on Rin, it was apparent, Yukio was crying, and among his own flowing tears: whispers, and Rin, a rock against them.

"Look at everything... around us. Look at everything we've done." Split lips wheezed. Satan growled. "Please."

Rin shook his head 'no'. He loved him too much. No. No... no.

"I don't think I can... save myself."

"Grrrr... you... y..." The one inside, a rippling voice coming out again.

Rin looked into those eyes, the irises, masking slowly into the dark, the fog floating, returning, the teal streams in them, fading, and becoming once again those large black pits with only a small colored outline. "I.. tol... told you."

A fading echo, "Ri... I'm.. dr... drowning here..." A voice, choked.

Rin closed his eyes.

Satan growled. "Path... pathet.."

He stabbed. Slamming his eyes open in the same second, watching the blood spurt from the all corners of his brother's face. A scream erupted from the mouth, a deep growl, scream of girth and anger, demonic, and another of a young scream, right on top of it, the howl of Yukio. Such as soft cry paired with such an evil one, completely contrasting one another. He ripped the sword out as quick as it went in.

Yukio's body slumped, Rin had damaged Satan's vessel, and in a few seconds, in a heinous, intense rage, shrieking, Satan's ever magnetic, deadly flames ceased, and it left the body of Yukio Okamura.

"Soon." Was all it breathed, as it became air. The wind stopped. The rain stopped. The sky just simply looked gray, just as it would if a rainstorm had just passed: the ever lingering, streaky clouds and a simple drizzle, light, sprinkled down. The late afternoon sun, deep orange, creeped over the horizon, through the clouds, looking like bands of smoky color innocently scribbled by a child.

With promise of return, with promise it wasn't over, that it would have what it wanted, that it would take Assiah, that it will reign, holding his brother close to him, all Rin could think, was how strong his brother had been. Cradling the dragoon exorcist in his lap, barely alive, he cried profusely, a complete wreak over him, his own blood leaking all over to join with Yukio's on the ground.

Satan had chained Yukio down, opened his own gates of demonic powers, and revealed so many secrets out in the open. It had truly crushed Yukio, crushed him, wadded him up like a little piece of paper. All of his strength that he thought he had; it effortlessly played with his feelings, and toyed with his one weakness: Rin; and in turn, tried to set Rin ablaze, with his eyes peeled back, duct-taped completely open, so that he had no choice but to watch as Satan slowly burned his brother to a pile of ash. Being stabbed was bad, there was a nasty metallic taste in his mouth, he was losing blood, but it would have been nothing compared to watching Rin die. He would rather be wounded, bleeding, dying in the rain. Protecting his brother was most important Shiro said.

Yukio was done. He and Rin lifelessly mourned, uncontrollably, sobbing, just holding one another, holding onto the only thing they knew was best: each other, until their knuckles began turning white.

"Rin." Whisper. Raindrops on his glasses.

He listened.

"I did lie. (cough), had to." Blood came.

"Shh" Rin whispered. "It's okay." He held him a little tighter, closer, feeling the labored breath warm against his lower cheek. He wouldn't let him go, won't let him.

"The Vat.. Vatican... If they found out..." He coughed worse, "I was turning... "

He took off Yukio's glasses and tossed them.

"they'd..." He smirked. Rin, his big brother, his twin, so unlike him. _So wreckless, uncontrollable, lazy, childish at times, but yet so... kind._ He brought his palm to Rin's face, and let his teal meet Rin's blue. Rin put his hand over the hand at his face.

"Yuki?" The black exorcist trench had a gaping hole in it, the white shirt that poked through wasn't white, instead gunked with flesh.

 _Alike but so different; black hair, mine light brown. Pale; freckled._ He seen his vision hazing on the sides, and felt a warmth in his mouth. _Shorter than me._ An image of Rin eating an ice cream bar, standing at the bay window, a few days after they had held their 15th birthday party, floated to his mind.

Rin stared, eyes jolting around at Yukio's slowly blinking in his lap.

"the Vat... they'd take... me..."

It was the evening, the lights were dim in their room. He had stolen a glance at Rin watching the snow from the paperwork at his desk.

Rin touched his cheek then to his cheek, Yukio felt... cold. "Yuk?" Rin heard running footsteps.

The snowfall right outside the window, so dainty, white drops of powder. Lightly falling, the moonlight, a light blue on Rin's pale skin, made him look like he was made of a soft chiffon. _So ironic._ Cold, against a warm heart.

Rin was motionless, listening to Yukio's beats lessen.

"take me...away..." In the deepest place in hell, it's said it's so hot, it burns blue, cold. He wanted to feel the peace that Rin must of felt in that moment, in the night. He felt his body relaxing.

In his mind, Rin smiled wildly and looked at him, from the window. "Yukio?" It was Rin speaking to him, amidst his broken body, against his cheek.

Rin chuckled, the snowfall behind him. "Yo! Done with work yet Yuki?"

"away from... you." Yukio whispered.

He watched him, quietly as the flakes fell... Silence. Smirk.

 _Rin... So wrongly... perfect._ His hand fell.

"YUKIO!" Rin was yanked back by Bon, he was dragged away, screaming, his classmate jerking wildly, kicking, covered in nothing but red.

Bon yelled from behind him, drastically yanking his writhing, broken friend, "MEDICCCC! OVER HERE!

"Oh my god... NOWW!" Shima screamed, rushing to put his hand under Yukio's lifeless head.


	2. Chapter 2

Their first full year at True Cross Academy, of Cram School, the secret exorcist school beneath True Cross Academy, had passed, with the very end being one of the worst events that could of happened in the history of humanity; that a gate into Gehenna, the underworld/otherworld, had been opened, right on top of the school itself. In plain sight of all Tokyo.

A circular ring hazing into view from the sky, booming and fizzling, a flash storm began, rain slammed down, and a horrific, odd maroon lightning flashed. It was just big enough for the very one, the feared one: Satan. He took over the body of a boy on that roof: Yukio Okumura, and in that moment, when those demonic cerulean flames burst out of his eyes, unhinging Yukio's own blood right, (busting the floodgate to his own demonic powers wide open), Satan went crazy, laughing maniacally, screaming, seeing Yukio's true fears with his own eyes. For Yukio was Satan's hereditary son, and so was Rin, the twins. Satan, never had a proper vessel, until Yukio. It felt him, his strength of will, the boy had grown enough mentally to hold him, unlike so many others before more than twice his age.

Things had changed, Satan's vessel was unexpectedly... not Rin.

* * *

 _Shiro Fugimoto, the boys' adopted father, and Paladin Exorcist, had trained Yukio and sent him to exorcist school, Cram School, at the same academy: True Cross. With Yukio being a bright flight student, Shiro knew he would pick it up fast, and he did, becoming the youngest cram student to achieve exorcist status by the age of thirteen._

 _The truth was what held Yukio to his dragoon guns, the truth that eventually Rin, his older twin brother, the one who had the hereditary, uncontrollable blue flames of Satan, would go haywire. The Kurikara, even though a strongly spiritual, steel bladed samurai sword of ancient times, the enchantment placed upon it would not be able to contain and keep his demonic flames at ease. The Kurikara's power known among exorcists to dampen a demon's supernatural gifts, eventually would fail. As Rin aged it became more apparent, as the sword got so frequently re-blessed that by the time Rin and Yukio were fourteen, it was a weekly, secret occurrence below their monastery floorboards._

 _Tensions were high; neither of the two wanted to do to Rin what might need to be done, for humanity, for Rin was raised as a normal human boy. Except unlike Yukio, even with his powers locked away with the help of a sword unbeknownst to him, he had an abnormal strength, and unfortunately for Shiro... an abnormal temper. From the time he was old enough to understand the world, he started getting into fights with other kids at his elementary and middle schools. He was a terrible learner, and he had trouble concentrating in school. Shiro, even though Rin was an utter mess, and the fact that he had to be there to clear things up with parents, always, Rin had a wonderfully loving and caring heart, and that was what won Shiro Fugimoto over, he loved the boy, as if he were his own._

 _They were HIS sons._

 _People may of looked at Rin as a thug or a lunk compared to Yukio, the quiet, smart, popular one, but Shiro and Yukio cared for him, they were a small family, not a whole one, but one nevertheless._

 _However, Shiro's loyalty to the Vatican, even though he never strictly followed their rules, (for they had let the Paladin Exorcist have the boys after their birth, allowing them to live), was for the first time, between a rock and a hard place. Shiro always knew what to do, but not this time. Rin's teenage emotions and body were reaching it's peak, maturing, Shiro and Yukio both knew that the day would come soon, where Rin would explode out of no where, into a blue light, and a choice had to be made, for the future existence of the human world._

 _One has to ask, Why even let Rin live? Killing one or both of them at infants, would of been so easy. Not for Shiro. His soft heart, as the little babies mewled in his lap on the bus ride home, melted. They were just... babies. As Yukio slept peacefully and Rin jabbered; he couldn't, even if he knew the outcome. He couldn't._

 _Shiro needed someone who could possibly kill Rin, if worse came to worse, that's why he had chose Yukio, a boy only eight years old. Never had he wanted to push this terrible duty off on Yukio, but he was old enough to be a grandfather. Shiro wouldn't be there to do it, his body would fail._

 _He had to ready Yukio with Cram School for the possible impending task. There was no other way, simply wounding Rin might not stop him, stop him from mutilating and ripping everything living to shreds, his uncontrollable Satan Flames, that power taking over his body, his mind, and perhaps his heart, would kill._

 _It was a hard choice, a clandestine choice, choosing Yukio to be the an executioner, to deliver the final blow, if need be, but Shiro knew, Yukio and Rin being twins, had a strong bond. Yukio could get to him, Rin would let him in, let him get close. Yukio would have to be the one with the choice: with his Dragoon Exorcist pistols, there to kill him, or his Doctor Exorcist skills to keep Rin at bay._

* * *

However, a hell gate was opened, (as gates around the world by random Satanic worshipers would be opened from time to time, and exorcists were sent to close them), and Shiro got caught in the cross-fire. It changed everything.

* * *

 _Satan, that spirit, that airy blue fire, had jumped the gate for the first time in centuries, and with flames on high heat, it burned right and left, body after body plummeting to the ground in a pile of black ash. It dissolved from the northern highlands of Japan, to a small, quaint monastery of the coast of Southern Japan: Shiro, Yukio and Rin's monastery, that they called home; hundreds of miles in the blink of an eye. As a spirit with no body, Satan could move at incredible speed. Many monks burned alive, setting the structure on fire around them._

 _With screaming echoing in every direction, Rin was horrified, scuttling away, trying to hide from unknown origins of random fire, and Yukio had pulled out guns from somewhere and was firing them around into the bodies of their fiery peers, as the random flames hopped from monk to monk, playing musical chairs. Rin was scared out of his mind, everything was on fire, blaring, hot, burning, his monk elders were dying, turning to ash, and Yukio was shooting guns! He was confused, lost._

 _But suddenly, the flame skipped, the gunfire stopped, and Rin peaked out from behind a pew not eight feet away, as there was no noise, and seen, his father, Shiro Fugimoto, amidst flames, like magic, blood spurting from his nose, ears lengthening, fangs growing. Yukio on his back, on the ground, guns up, and the weapons, with his fingers still on the triggers, shook profusely, he was too shaken to fire. Unable. Frozen. Terror._

 _"Rin!" Yukio shrieked. "Downstairs!" Pain in his voice._

 _Rin gawked at him._

 _"Sword Rin! GRAB THE SWORD!"_

 _"Oh my little demon, how lovely. How lovely." Satan choked out. "Aw, poor suit, this one isn't good either." It just watched Rin jolt downstairs._

 _Shiro's body wiggled and it's arms flung wildly. Yukio knew Shiro was fighting._

 _Satan had killed so many random spiritual leaders, burning through their bodies in a desperate attempt to find a container, a will power that could hold him, (which they now know was to take Assiah)._

 _Rin unsheathed the sword with a quickness. Blue flames bolted out of his head, that looked strangely like flaming horns, he felt his own teeth grow and ache inside his mouth, a mesmerizing pain shot up his spine, at his lower back, as a weird, thin black tail emerged out of nowhere covered in his own blood. He was shaking as much as Yukio, stuck in a sore stance because of his new appendage, at the waves of pain in his back and jaw, but also at Shiro, his dad, on fire. He was completely overwhelmed._

 _He had never wielded a sword, insecurity over took him, he wasn't even sure if he was standing in the correct posture, but he held it up to Shiro as Yukio had implied. He did as his twin said, Yukio knew best._

 _If anyone had a chance against this being it was Rin. Yukio knew he was supposed to execute him, if his flames consumed him, but the game had changed when Satan unexpectedly emerged inside their own home and took over the body of Shiro. It was personal. Yukio needed Rin's fire, needed it, absolutely had no choice except to unveil it as a weapon for exorcism against Satan... he was just a human. He needed a demon's unearthly strength._

 _"Let our father go!" Yukio yelled over the burning monastery._

 _"Oh! Rin! Lovely seeing you here, oh look at you there! Those flames, oh my!" It smiled wide like a jester. It didn't acknowledge Yukio._

 _Rin's knees buckled and he sat on them absolutely frozen in terror. It was the first time he had ever seen... this._

 _"It's Satan... Rin! Slash him!"_

 _Rin's eyes buckled, much like his knees. His sword wasn't even up anymore._

 _"Hmm, well. Looks like I've found the one I've been looking for."_

 _Yukio grunted, he didn't like the way it stared at his brother. His idea was failing. He remained inanimate on the ground._

 _"My little Rin, I'll be back. And it's your body I'll be taking. My son's! Wha haha ha ha!"_

 _Yukio's mouth gaped open._

 _And in that instant, the body of Shiro turned, the head to stare at Yukio. A swirl of something in the eyes, Yukio knew Shiro was looking at him. Not a scream uttered from his mouth, nor a word, just a simple look of acknowledgement. Yukio knew, he would have to tell Rin, tell him everything. The gray, bearded chin, once a soft, kind and gentle face, incinerated._

 _Among the aftermath, Satan gone, burned logs smoking on the ground, floorboards splintered, and a pile of ash being scraped carefully into an urn by a surviving monk, Yukio told Rin everything._

 _They are the sons of Satan._ _Their mother was possessed by it, and it had impregnated her with them._ _Rin got the blue flamed power, he was the demon, Yukio did not, was not._ _Yukio had been taken to be an exorcist at the age of 8, by 13 he got his two titles. A Dragoon. A Doctor._ _He is dragging Rin to True Cross Academy whether he liked it or not to educate and watch him. He was a threat to the world, and d_ _emons- are real._ _Hell- is real._

 _Things clicked in Rin's mind- So that's where they went when they made me go to bed, that's why we never had a real father, our mother- died, that's why I'm aggressive, why I'm different, unliked. A loser. No talent. He frowned._

 _Yukio was going to put a bullet in his head, his own brother. He didn't start a fight, he didn't argue. He just stood and walked away. Had he no faith in him whatsoever?_

* * *

The whole first year at True Cross's secret Cram School, Yukio and Rin lived together in an abandoned dorm, by themselves, away from everyone, Yukio constantly hounded him, and analyzed his every movement so closely that Rin wasn't even allowed to have his own room. Yukio tried to put Rin on a path to train himself to use the blue flames to his advantage; to become an exorcist also... eventually. It was all he could do to help his brother, force him go to Cram School. It was all he could think of. If Rin could gain control of his flames, maybe then he could use them for good, maybe his heart wouldn't turn. Frankly, he was surprised as it was that the flames hadn't taken his limp brain over instantly at the monastery.

The Kurikara contained Rin's physical flames, their appearance, as long as it wasn't unsheathed, but not anything else anymore. Rin had sharp teeth, ears pointier than normal, and a long tail, with short fine hair the same ebony color as his mop top, the fluff on the end looking similar to a cow tail. He hid it all under his hair, and under his clothes. He had to. It wasn't... normal. People would realize something was... off.

Rin couldn't be Satan's vessel, Yukio wouldn't allow it, on top of everything else.

Rin had to push himself, to become better. So he could fight it when that day came, but that battle was harder than Yukio thought. His brother was such a poor learner, he fell asleep in class, had concentration problems and would get frustrated easily. There was such a vast difference in learning capabilities between them. Yukio, would badger him about reading his textbooks, instead of reading manga. _Rin, why don't you study? Rin, are you asleep? Okamura, what... what are you doing... ? (He just sat there innocently staring at the ceiling in class)._ Yukio felt like Shiro more and more everyday.

It was worse with his flame-training. Whenever asked to do such a simple thing as lighting candles with them, he melted them completely. He couldn't control the size of the flame, the variation of it, nothing. The only thing he learned over the course of the year was to control the temperature, which he could do easily as long as his raging temper was in check.

Even though the twins put some very important things aside that year, and grew somewhat closer as brothers than they had had before, neither expected the library roof incident: that Yukio's body was taken instead.

Yukio had held him at gunpoint once in their shared dorm, all because he had gotten too close, Rin had tried (for God's sake) to give him a hug, and Yukio had pushed him away, and that resorted in Rin getting mad at him, and Yukio raising his gun to his forehead, telling him he would shoot if he had to. Yukio truly had been afraid, and even after he realized that he loved Rin more than he could kill him, and had told Rin that to his face, Satan dug up the old baggage and used it as fuel against Rin anyway, lying to him. But, if he had been frightened of Rin, so much that at one point in time he didn't want him to touch him, even for a simple embrace, because he was a demon, a possible human slaughterer, and Satan's vessel... what was he now?: A demon also, and Satan's vessel.

They both were vessels. Yukio was just... a better fit.

He had to sacrifice himself. It was the only way to protect Rin, from Satan, but also... from himself.

If he now was Satan's true vessel... Rin needed to be alive, to stop Satan, because Satan isn't going to stop... ever. If he sacrificed himself, Satan couldn't take a physical form, and in turn, Rin might be able to become very good exorcist, and fight for humanity's side. It would be better than Satan taking over Yukio's body and Rin having to fight against his own brother's form.

Yukio had established a small faith in Rin. Throughout the year, Yukio had witnessed times of Rin's unfailing love, his passion for life, and his compassion for other's feelings and situations. He had saved their friend, Sheimi, another ex-wire (exorcist trainee/student), from the demon Amiamon, and in turn after Sheimi snapped out of the trance that Amaimon had put her in, Rin's flames out of control, and Rin out of his right mind (Yukio thought that was surely the day that he would have to kill him), she saved him. She wrapped her arms around Rin, and her own compassion for him, calmed him.

Yukio knew that Rin didn't need the Kurikara anymore, that sword he lugged around with him everywhere, as a means solely to make his flames invisible, Rin's soul wasn't evil, and his heart would eventually control the flames, not his emotions or his temper; the Kurikara would also eventually become his wielding weapon, his Knight Exorcist sword of choice, not simply a burden on his back, in a maroon bag.

Upon his dying breath, he wouldn't of wished that life for his brother. Without him, as a guide, a role model.

But as Shiro, Yukio found himself in the same shoes. Following in his footsteps- taken over by Satan, without any other choice.

He thought, awhile back, Rin deserved to be invisibly on-fire, his temper overbearing, his attitude annoying, a bad student, a lazy sloth. But, now, after a year had passed of them living together on campus, he realized his constant absence while working towards his two exorcist meisters (unknown to Rin), he had looked over his brother's ability, the one that he didn't possess as much- the ability to love.

He had grown harsh under the conditions Shiro trained him under. Satan had voiced it, seen in his head- that was true. A hardened mind, heart and soul Yukio possessed.

But upon his last breaths, he had cried, begged. And Rin... responded how he wanted. For the first time... he was a good pupil. He stabbed him.

A switch went off in Yukio's mind: that there was some hope for humanity still.

A hope in his brother... was what brought his death.


	3. Chapter 3

His sore lids, puffy and irritated, cracked open, and a distinct yellow crust made prying them apart hard, like his eyelids were slowly popping stitches. That feeling left him trying desperately to wipe the stickiness off with his shirt, recognizing the smell of cough medicine and a lemon astringent instead. Walls around him pained his eyeballs, a stark white, the blanket covering him, thin and woven, felt as soft as cotton balls. Unnatural lights and brightness he grumbled at, and around through his haze, the only scenery that graced him was a solid mesh-like curtain, which half covered his left and right side, and a beeping sound; a heart machine.

His assumption was right: He was in a hospital.

"Uhrmmmp." He prodded for the button on the side of the bed and found it, and began slowly making his way to a sitting-up position. The very sound of the gears turning was sickening, that low murmur, just another infirmary sound added to the other noises in the room. Shivers of wincing pain shot through his arm as he reached down haphazardly to grab a remote control near the screen of the monitor, causing an IV to wobble one of his hands' large veins.

"Glad to see you awake there kiddo." A familiar voice chidded.

Rin groggily looked over to the visitor in the chair by the wall in front of him. He felt stitches pulling the skin by his stomach. The person was absolutely, unmistakably... "Mephisto?"

"Aw yes." His silly 'hee hee' chuckle chimed. "Well... Sir Pheles. I'm your dean, remember that."

"Wha? What day is it?" He struggled to push himself further up to sit more properly, a fizzle in his voice.

Sir Pheles chuckled again at Rin. "(hee hee) Zwanzig... Mai."

"English please?" Rin scoffed. He didn't like Mephisto. So many things about him seemed... strange. His Harijuku attire paired with running a private school, which of course housed the secret Cram School, the sole purpose of True Cross to begin with, boggled his mind, more-less confused him. Rin had learned last semester, True Cross was Japan's only Cram School, and it had been that way for centuries, but a demon like Mephisto running it? Obviously there was something he didn't know, but he came to accept it, as Mephisto had proved his loyalty to The Vatican, for he was an exorcist even, a high ranking one at that. Killing and exorcising his own kind, there had to be a reason why. He had always questioned, but isn't that what he had been doing for awhile now also?

"The twentieth of May." Sir Pheles uncrossed and recrossed his legs. His deep fuchsia leggings were just as ridiculous as his character. "Really, you should try learning another language Rin... it's fun." His responses were so kiddish at times.

"Not interested." He was just about to turn on the tv.

"You are one amusing kid. You know that?" Mephisto stood in front of it, his ivory cape and top hat made him look like some sort of weird prince.

"Why are you here Mephisto?" He groaned.

"Getting annoyed already are we?" He took five steps and was where he was, the room incredibly small. Standing by the bed, he turned the tv on for him with a touch of a single button. "...oh, have you forgotten what happened within the past couple of days?"

On the television it looked as if some sort of press conference was about to start, and Rin sighed, as he realized Mephisto was also on the tv, waltzing up to the press box with the True Cross Academy heart logo pasted to it. So like Mephisto, observing his own press conference on television. It was like he got a high out of watching himself; vain.

 _"Sir Pheles!" A reporter shrieked out above the others. Mephisto pointed, setting down his cane lengthwise across the box, also with True Cross's heart logo fashioned on the top handle. "What have you decided to do for classes this upcoming year?"_

A mic'ed voice rang, amplifying the suaveness that Rin disliked the most, he frowned.

 _"We are offering online classes to our students this next year. True Cross isn't going 'out-of-business', just the physical campus will be off limits, a electronic campus will be working full force instead."_

 _"S..Sir Pheles!" "Sir Pheles!" Hands waving. He pointed. A lady reporter in a blue blouse._

 _"Why has True Cross's owner decided to remodel?"_

 _The response prompt, "Some of the buildings are just... old. The better ones we are going to keep in tact, the ones that need work done are the more primary buildings. Don't worry, True Cross won't lose it's charm, it's just getting an updated look. Frankly, it's overdue." Sir Pheles moved his hand from left to right in a very showy manner, smiling and then winking, which drove the reporters mad with shouting and yelling. He pointed at another._

 _"Did they get inspected by a licensed surveyor?"_

Mephisto chuckled at his own response on the video, which was an eyebrow raise.

 _He smiled and stroked his thin, kinked beard. "Of course we did. The roofing needs to be replaced on five buildings." He smirked. "Mostly the library. As well as some of the dormitories need their air conditioning systems fixed, and the Student Union needs new flooring, as well as the largest cafeteria we have on campus needs a huge kitchen and interior remodel."_

Mephisto clicked the tv off and chuckled. "You have to be careful with the press, that one would of gotten the school in trouble had I said we didn't file for building inspections." He had a gloved index finger pointing. He tried sitting on the bed with Rin. "Can you scooch over a bit?"

Rin sighed, Mephisto wasn't leaving anytime soon. Wiggling as best he could to allow for the dean to plop himself, and his ballooned britches down into a comfortable spot on the bedside, he sat his cane down across Rin's chest, Rin responded with an eye-roll, his cape covered him like another blanket, the filigree pattern on the underside of it the same fuchsia color as his skin tight leggings. He was practically lounging, as if he was in his own house on Rin's bed, lazily sitting upright like he was on a sofa.

"Hang onto that for me, would you?" His gloved fingers swam around in his beard, twisting and untwisting it into knots. "You were wondering why I was here."

Rin grunted.

"The nurse did say that you would have some short term memory loss, and seeing that's the case, I'm here to fill you in. Oh goodie! The's doors shut." He turned back around to be comfortable again, and not looking at Rin, he swished the curtain open, unsheathing the window beyond the heart monitor, staring into the abyss of blue sky, with a few puffy clouds.

"You see kiddo..." He took his hat off and sat it on top the heart monitor. Surprisingly he didn't have 'hat-hair', but his shaggy dark head was styled very nicely. "You fought against a demon on top the library. In the garden."

Rin's mind whisked a few moments. Mostly of rain.

"It was raining."

"Yes, yes, it had been... the demon's loss that day has echoed on our walls here at True Cross, because of you two. On our walls, literally." His eyebrows raised.

Rin listened.

"I'm glad the students left for summer break... just in time. You see, it was Satan himself you fought against up there."

Rin remembered now. Rain... and blue fire. A distinct hatred swarmed through his blood. Why was everything always on fire, always? Around him, near him, he had embraced it finally, but once he had been afraid. This was his uncanny life.

"And Satan losing isn't something a demon of his stature can deal with very well, especially losing to two teenage children. You two tricked him in a way." Mephisto chuckled, "And now he's certainly in a rage. He's been sending demons, all sorts of them, mostly un-bodied ones, spirits, all cannon fodder of course, to scatter across the walls here, to find the leaks that blessings couldn't cover, to scourge the entire school grounds... to invade."

The door opened and closed shut behind them. And Mephisto immediately shut his mouth. "Oh it's you." Was his response.

"That's right it's me! Who else would it be?" The woman had surprised look on her face. "I've been here every damn day since he's been in here clown."

"Shura." Rin stated.

"That's right, amidst all this chaos, a woman's gotta do, what a woman's gotta do to keep herself lookin' good you know?" She fluffed her long hair, which obviously she had gotten trimmed, it was the same colors as always, mostly a bright stop sign red, with a crayon yellow ombre effect towards the ends.

Her voice boomed, that's Shura; boisterous, and her look, attention grabbing. Rin winced, another person who was vain in his room. He hated it when these two were around one another. Since they had similar personalities, they literally fought like dogs. He had only witnessed it a few times, but he considered himself lucky, seeing as it was only a few times. Now he was stuck in the hospital bed, and couldn't escape easily, he couldn't just leave Mephisto's office like last time to let them battle it out word-wise.

"Here's a coffee." Shura sat it down on his bedside table. "I figured you'd be up today. It's been like four days."

"Four days?"

"Oh yeh, like a burned out bulb amigo!" She sucked her coffee down. Standing with her arms crossed loosely, staring at Mephisto casually lounging on the bedside.

Rin grabbed the coffee and began drinking it too, it wasn't too hot, just right, and loaded with cream and sugar. How he liked it, it must of been how Shura made her coffee also, seeing as he had never had coffee with Shura before.

"Anyway." Mephisto grinded his teeth, annoyed. "The demons broke through the walls here at True Cross. And they are after any and every person involved in the supposed travesty committed against the Lord of the Otherworld."

"Then we've gotta stop them!" Rin tried sitting up, shouting. He coffee slightly sloshed.

"Oh, no no." Mephisto pushed, using his own cane like a emergency-bar on an amusement ride to force him down.

"That makes jobs for us exorcists Rin, not you, or your friends. Ex-wires have no place in this." Shura stated resolutely, tugged up on her bandeau bra. That's all she wore, a bra with those teensy daisy-duke shorts and combat boots, tall socks. She looked stupid to him, he admitted the first time he seen her, her big chest, her appearance almost gave him a nosebleed, but after awhile, once he got to know her better, her personality flat-out ruined her looks.

He rolled his eyes at her pulling herself together on top. He swore she'd probably get along better if she wore something else.

Mephisto continued in a very 'as a matter of fact' tone, "True Cross an absolute disaster, a completely unlivable, unmanageable, and chaotic environment, and it's going to be that way for nearly the whole next year. It takes a lot for me to admit that." He crunched in the corner of his mouth. "But, the demons are slowly one by one being exorcised, holes in the barriers are being found, restored, repaired, and re-blessed. But! As of right now... It's a war out there!"

"So, where is everyone?" He blandly stated, listening to Mephisto's showy tone.

He had gotten so used to living on campus. Living in the dormitory, going back and forth to class, running at the gym, flame-training. His life was uprooted after his unexpected dad's death, and forced onto the campus of True Cross, living spontaneously between classes, his clothes jammed in a tiny section of closet, being yelled at to do work, to study. But he had gotten used to it, it was... home, with his Cram School buddies, and Yukio.

"Bring main targets of the demon masses, the ex-wires had to leave Rin, they had no other choice, it was no longer safe. They all returned to their respective places to hide from danger until it's cleared, your small group are Japan's future exorcists, your lives are valued." Shura stated.

Mephisto nodded. Rin noted how strange it was that they were complementing each other's conversation, all the while angry that he didn't get to say even a simple 'goodbye'. He frowned.

Mephisto chimed, trying to lighten the mood, "No worries! The one you call ugh...Bon, Konekumaru, and Shima returned to their temple, far away in the northern Japanese highlands. Bon did return bandaged up, he received some stitches, but all is well. Izumo returned to her hometown with her best gal pal," he chuckled at his choice of words, his hands speaking with him, "Sheimi returned to her home, outside Tokyo and far enough away from the academy that she could still see the buildings. It was quite a scenery, the mountains to the north, and Tokyo to the left, the small dots off in the distance, our own school. Boy her mother makes the best tea, and they also had this ti..."

As the dean droned on about the countryside, Rin recalled himself how beautiful it was there, a look just outside the garden gate one could see the city. It was where Yukio had taken him multiple times to get herbs for his Doctor Exorcist ailments.

"... and she made these lemon cookies, they had this sort of filling in them that wa.."

"HEY!" Shura shut him up. "Before Sir Lancelot goes further into his ever-so interesting story of plundered lands... we have to tell you some things." Sarcasm.

Rin crinked in the corners of his mouth, there it was. These two. He sipped the coffee.

"Yes, yes (cough)" Mephisto snapped out of it. "I needed an alibi for the fact that my academy is completely unstable. So... I lied to the press, all the students, the press conference made it official, releasing that the old buildings were under construction... well, it was more of an 'ultimate deception' on the general public, not necessarily a 'lie', well... maybe just a white one (hee hee)." He continued, so animated. "Like I told the press, classes will be all online."

Rin's face squinted in.

Mephisto seen his face, his green eyes probing, taking apart Rin's response, "Oh come now! It's not that bad! But, you do have to go home."

No change in Rin's expression. He was feeling homesick already having to leave his campus.

"And what about the demon gateway in the sky there, haha ho ho, hah, what about that?" Shura exploded out of nowhere, laughing in her typical manner: like Santa. She literally sounded like Santa when she laughed, jolly ho ho's, it irked Rin. She was mocking Mephisto.

Mephisto stood, slamming his top-hat back on his head. Rin wanted to cover his ears.

"Well, I thought it was a great idea!" Mephisto grinned at his accomplishment, another lie. Had to be.

"What's a great idea?" Rin felt left out.

"Why a theme park of course!"

Rin just quirked his eyebrows. The only theme park at True Cross was a Harijuku themed park, which of course, upon entering classes and speaking with Mephisto the first few times at the private high school, Mephisto made clear, was one of his favorite parts of the school.

Rin's facial expressions filtered in and out, as thoughts came randomly both good and bad: Rin had fought Amaimon there once. That Amaimon got on his nerves; bodied demons if anything; were mostly annoying to him. Rin could see why the Harijuku park was a favorite of Mephisto's, as that was how he dressed himself, to match the ever so popular fantasy culture. _Why did he dress himself like that? Boy, Sheimi looked pretty that day._

Shura choked on her coffee, she was laughing so loudly it cut his trance.

"Oh yes, the gate, was simply a malfunction of several of the ride's flood lights." Mephisto was adding onto his lie that he had told, a hand on his hip.

"I... ha ha... can't believe... hoho. What a joke!" Shura continued. Amused.

"As far as the public knows, it was a new ride in the Halloween theme park, it's quite easy to manipulate to your advantage, you know." He winked at Rin.

Manipulate. Rin felt sick to his stomach. That comment. One word that triggered something current to probe back into his head.

 _I never thought I'd feel the rain again... so sensual._

 _He knew... test tubes turning black._ He heard the sarcasm in his head. That sick, icy voice.

 _A demon! Himself!_ It had gotten in his brother's body! He put his coffee down on the parson table to his left and pushed it away angrily.

"Where's my brother!?"

The hysterical laughing died down. It wasn't the response he wanted.

"Well, where is he? I need to talk to him."

A certain chord in his voice struck Shura, she knew he was remembering, slowly, leaking back into his mind. Only a few minutes more, and it would all come back.

Rin looked at Mephisto staring out the window, Shura staring at him. She put her styrofoam cup down, cleared her throat and un-crossed her arms, re-crossed them. Mephisto sighed.

"This is..." Mephisto trailed.

"What?" Something inside his gut, wasn't sitting right. The ceiling fan rocked. He cleared his throat. Wheels squeaking in the hallway.

"Rin." Shura's voice.

His confusion watched her brown eyes, which looked in every direction except at him. "Yukio... well..." She ran her tongue across her lips wetting them and swallowed.

His face began getting flush, a knot in his throat formed as he recalled Yukio's voice: _The Vat... would take me._

"Yukio is gone."

Rin's heart stopped in his chest. No.

"WHAT!" He piped. Shura rushed to his side and held him down as he made an attempt to jolt out of the bed. Mephisto turned to hold the other side. He jerked and writhed, his tail snapped out. His fangs bared. "NO! He gained the power to heal like me! NO!"

He fought them with word and as much logic as he could muster. Demon blood makes you heal faster, therefore he must be alive. _MUST BE!_

"HELP MeeEEEEE! YUKIO!" He wailed so loud it brought nurses swarming into his room, some of them running out again at the sight of the teen acting like a neanderthal. Had he a club, he would of been swinging it.

In his mind, for a brief instance he morphed into an unknowing, wild state, screaming for Yukio's assistance. With vision blurred, all he felt was them holding him, like in a mental hospital, like being put down to be chained to a bed. He shouted for his brother, to come assist him.

"YES RIN! Yes!" Shura shouted at him above his wails.

"NO!" Tears flared from his eyes, and a bright blue began to be seen. "You're a liar!" He began ripping at the blankets, trying desperately to get loose, to run.

"Turn the heat off Rin! TURN IT OFF!" His wrists turned inside her palms. The fifteen year old had an ungodly strength, and his temper whipped with a sharp tongue: a true example of how bipolar and uncontrollable it really was. He began shrieking as if mad, attempting to throw punches and wail on Mephisto.

Mephisto pressed down on his chest so hard that he couldn't breathe properly, (using his own demon strength), demon on demon, gaining Rin's gnashing teeth in his face, and the attention of his crazed eyes. "We tried to save him Rin! But..." Amongst Mephisto's power he shouted to him, "you stabbed him! You killed him!" It was working, Rin couldn't breathe, but the flames were becoming invisible once again, the heat going back down as his temper/emotions were changing.

"You killed him... you had to."

Rin's mind fluttered with thoughts of the last sight of his brother's face; lips ghost white, veined eyes, red leaking from his ears, nose clogged with clots, streams of tears trickling down over his lighted freckled cheeks, pale.

Anger was replaced with fleeting thoughts, boiling up. He babbled, bringing the ripped blanket to cover his face. He mourned into it openly, so hard that as Mephisto let his strength off his chest and picked his cane back up, that the weight still felt the same.

Death was all being a demon brought him; memories, memories of good times, but at a price: the fire, the fire bringing a reaper. So gravitational, so strikingly abrupt, horrific, good memories just... ruined. Inside, his stomach shriveled, swam, tingles running through his blank face. A salted sea, endless, rounded down his cheeks, tears ebbing over, like a river of smooth bedrock, his mind so numb, not a single drop he could feel caressing him.

They would play tag in between the pews, Yukio's childish laughter; Satan's sick, icy 'WHA haha!'

Looking at Yukio cleaning his glasses, buttoning his stark white shirt, snapping the exorcist trench; Satan's ugly features morphing Yukio's sharp face, his torn clothes exposing nasty, ripped flesh.

Watching his brother effortlessly firing those guns, with the ivy etching on the sides, once Shiro's, so perfectly into paper targets, so exact; A sword slamming through his torso, and a squirt of blood, a choke, a puff of red mist, like a small cloud out of his mouth and across Rin's shirt, little perfect circles, like red ink.

He cried.

All... ruined.

Forever- _Away... from you._

* * *

The Okumura twins, they weren't as lucky, as just to return 'home' as the others.

After simply awakening in the infirmary, after being under in the hospital, Rin, a demon, a son of Satan, and an ex-wire, was bought a bus ticket home, back to the damaged monastery that he and Yukio were raised in by the monks and his adopted father, the priest, the late, Shiro Fugimoto, with his and Yukio's clothing and belongings.

That was a long bus ride home. A bus ride he thought he would be taking with Yukio, but instead, he took alone, with Yukio's rosary in his hand, clinching it, so tight that the beads left pressed round marks. He watched the marks fade, then he'd do it again. Over and over. The marks fading, much like Yukio's life, in the palms of his hands.

* * *

White light.

Siren.

"Scalpel, now!"

Flash.

Shaking.

Rin's face, a scream.

His eyes slammed open. At least they felt like the were open, and what graced him was nothing. Darkness.

 _Where am I?_

No response.

He began moving, and pain rushed to him, immobilizing him, the jutting, zig-zagging feeling absolutely horrid. At least he thought he had moved, where did the pain come from?

He seen light from somewhere, the side of his eye. But it was just a simple, light, little fog, like on a trail in the early morning. The fog was slowly clearing, ever so slowly he began recognizing things: Bricks, ceiling fan, a round wall clock.

Then he did the one thing that made him aware, he hacked. Coughed so loudly that he realized: he was alive.

 _What?_ Confused.

He shuffled quickly in the bed, realizing that the pain wasn't allowing him to move much. He threw the blanket off of him, as much as he could, and his torso was wrapped completely. So were his legs in some places, his right arm, and his right wrist. What felt like a brown rope constricting his waist he tugged and tugged on, trying to get it off of him, only to send a searing pain up his spine. He winced, trying to sit up unsuccessfully.

"What... what are you doing?"

He heard a voice. A soft one, pleasant, but odd it sounded.

"Don't pull on that, silly, that's your tail."

His eyes probbed around for the visitor. He seen a cat sitting on the edge of his bed, yawning. It looked like it had just awoke, stretching.

He looked to his left and to his right. No one was there.

"Hey Yukio."

His eyes widened and just stared at the cat, who was now sitting on it's haunches, staring at him. He swore the voice came from that general direction. He looked behind the cat, there were vase of white roses on a table, a wall. He looked around through his peripherals. Cautious.

"Yo! Yukio. You are so funny!" The cat sat up and slowly began walking on the blanket closer to Yukio's torso, rather than at his feet. It's mouth had moved.

He just stared. He knew now, the cat was talking to him. Cat's can't talk. He must be dead.

"I'm dead, because cat's can't talk." Was his bland response. Obviously he must be dead, this is nuts.

"Nope." Was all the cat said.

"Nope? What's that mean?" He was trying to be calm about this.

"You've never been a demon before, but you are now. So... you can hear the familiar's speak."

Familiar. Cat. Black and white fur. "Kuro?"

"That's right, winner winner, chicken dinner. I know I'd like that."

It was his brother's familiar. Not one that he summoned of course, because like always, it was another thing his brother failed at doing, summoning a lesser demon that he could control. Kuro was once Shiro's familiar. It migrated onto Rin after finding out about Shiro's death. They all had a special gift too, and Kuro's was making himself larger, he could grow from the size of a normal cat to the size of a giant Godzilla cat.

"So put your tail down, if you keep tugging on it like that... you're gunna hurt yourself."

Yukio let it go, and watched it spasm around under the covers. It had looked like a brown rope at first, completely cutting his air off around his diaphragm, but upon closer inspection he realized it was covered in short, sleek fur, with a fluff on the end. The same as his brother's, except it matched his hair color instead: a sandy ashen brown; his brother's a shale black.

A small tear slithered down over his cheek. "I'm supposed to be dead."

He knew what this meant. Satan's true vessel... himself... was still alive. Satan could take form then, something he never wanted his brother to have to fight. He made his brother stab him so he would die, so Rin could continue, to make it harder for Satan. His plan... failed. His brother even though solid in his execution, which surprised him, gave him hope, but now... ?

"Who is responsible for this?" He asked among teary eyes. He was angry, absolutely bitter.

"The Vatican." Kuro stated, he was blinking his green eyes slowly.

"They know that Satan can use me to take form right? Are they stupid? Why did they save my life?" He spit it out.

"I don't know. I'm sorry Yukio." Kuro tried sympathizing with him. His little paw touched Yukio's forearm. It was warm, like a little paw of beans, the pads on it round. "That's what I'm trying to figure out."

Yukio was beginning to realize more and more, that the Vatican, this religious organization that the exorcists operated under, was ran more like a government, if the counsel voted on something, that's what they would do. Again, he felt more like Shiro day in and day out, no wonder Shiro, his father, truly didn't follow the Vatican's principles 100% of the time.

If they didn't let him die, and didn't realize that that was the best way, then, they really were out of their right minds. What interest could they possibly have in keeping him alive?

"Yo, Yukio. I know your thoughts are running wild right now." Kuro's words emanated the intonations Rin had in his voice, obviously Kuro had picked up on Rin's excessive usage of the word 'yo' within the year that he's been Rin's familiar, "But Satan can't posses you right now at least. You're injured still. No gates are open currently that he can hop, and he also has to find you too. He doesn't just have a Yukio 'radar'."

He tried to point out the positive, if being injured could be a positive thing.

"So then, is that why you are here Kuro?" Yukio rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to sit upright, using his left arm as a prop, wincing painfully. His voice choking, and puffing on a round of coughs.

"You're forgetting some things. I'm not loyal to the Vatican." Kuro rubbed the side of his head on Yukio's arm, "I'm loyal to Rin."

"So, Rin sent you?"

"No. I came on my own." Kuro sat, his tail moving similar to Yukio's, patting on the bed in thought, "I think it's in Rin's best interest that I'm here, rather than there with him right now."

"Well. I need to get up, so I can go to the dorm and find him. We need to come up with an alternative plan." A distinct chord of frustration fluttered in the last sentence.

"There might be a problem with that."

Yukio turned and quirked his eyebrows, "What? Why?" There was no way anything was holding him back, not even a little cat. Maybe a big cat.

"This isn't Japan."

Nevermind. Yukio didn't move listening to Kuro's words, that had stopped him.

"You and Rin have been divided up, you were sent to the other side of the world, to London."

"Hmm." Yukio groaned.

"So far, from what I could hear among the upper-class English exorcists, even though the Vatican knows you are a middle-class exorcist, they wanted to surveillance you for quite awhile. They needed a place to put you, so your wounds could heal, but you are the son of Satan. The fact that Satan himself 'unlocked' your demonic powers, turning you into a demon, and that this was all new to you, raised their concern. it wasn't exactly how your brother's powers got unlocked, not natural."

The Vatican had shuffled Yukio off, and he didn't even get the chance to say a small word of goodbye to Rin. They must of moved him while he was out.

Yukio was here, but where were all of his things? He at least spied his glasses, next to his bedside on a table, opened the hinges angrily and placed them on his face, pushing them up with a slight flick on the bridge of his nose. He was still healing too, worse than Rin was probably, much worse.

"I don't know where my things are." Yukio gawked around, his neck loosely rolling to the sides like he had just got done with an extremely strenuous workout, but instead it was due to him still feeling rather weak.

"They left all of it with Rin, except your glasses, and a few other momentos in the drawer there." Kuro stated wiggling himself onto Yukio's lap, motioning his head to the bedside table's drawer.

"Are you serious Kuro? My guns, I need them, and my trench-coat." Yukio's words were deathly, never did he like being separated from his guns. They were once his father's. The gift his father gave him once he gained his title of 'Exorcist'. He could give a shit less about his trench coat, if he had his guns, but he was missing both. As a matter of fact, he was missing everything. His white collared shirts, his black pants, his everyday attire, sleep pants, sweats, socks, dress shoes... everything. Where the hell was his duffel bag? Surely whoever packed his stuff, Rin had instructed them to put it in his black duffel bag.

"I'm sure Rin wasn't very happy about them not giving me my things." He knows that Rin would of told them that that would make him mad. However, Rin had been known to be a push-over. A soft-hearted, loving one at that. He smirked. His brother: the more caring one.

"Well, Rin wasn't there." Kuro said.

Yukio stopped thinking, and looked down in his lap, and could see that if a cat could frown, that was the human expression he would of been making.

"What do you mean?"

"When we left, I mean 'we' because I stowed away on the plane they brought you here in, Rin was in a coma, like you." He tail wrapped tight around the side of his body, flicking on the end. Yukio's tail stopped moving, listening. "When it got to the point where bandages were being changed on Rin twice daily, and after Vatican officials got permission to exit you from the infirmary at the school, you had just had surgery and was still damaged with stitches. That's when they moved you, immediately after."

Yukio's face looked absolutely foul at that knowledge.

"Rin was healing a lot faster than you. He's also been a demon longer than you. I'm sure he is probably awake by now."

Yukio knew this, he knew demon blood had a chemical embedded in it that healed faster. Obviously being a demon was going to change things for him in his life. He could hear Kuro for one thing. He moved his tongue around in his mouth, over the fangs that had grown.

"You've got pointier ears too." Kuro concluded for him, observing him. "Don't worry, you'll get used to eating around those fangs. Rin told me once it took him about a month to get used to them." He readjusted himself on Yukio's lap.

He pet Kuro, and the cat rolled onto it's back and bent his paws over in response. He scratched it's tummy.

"So, the Vatican doesn't know you're here?"

"Exactly." Kuro stated. "I'm sure, I'm hoping, once the Vatican realizes that inherently you train much more accelerated than Rin, and with permission, you can return to exorcising demons, after you learn to control the flames, since it's new to you, of course."

"Something doesn't seem right. You aren't telling me everything." Yukio was trying to read between the lines. "You can't just be here because you want to be here, because you're simply 'loyal' to Rin." Yukio was wondering. "I want to know loyal how, and why."

Kuro's green eyes opened from being closed, as Yukio stopped scratching his tummy. He sat up and stretched once again.

"Hmm, you are a lot more intuitive than Rin, that's for sure. I'm being loyal to Rin, because I purely am, but also because he doesn't need me right now." He licked his paw. "I think you need me more, but being here is loyal to Rin because it is in Rin's best interest that I am here instead. You need someone to teach you how to use those flames of yours. See, they already put a seal on you to keep the appearance of the flames invisible."

Yukio rolled his head down to gawk at a ring around his left index finger. That he's never seen before, as he was petting Kuro with his bandaged right appendage. He didn't even realize anything was there, that's how numb his body was still. Rin had an enchanted sword, Yukio had an enchanted ring. He took it off and instantly, the flames he realized were around them, not flaring, just simply a light misty aura of blue. Kuro just yawned. He put the ring back on, made of sapphire and silver.

"They didn't consume your being yet either, that's what you had been afraid of with Rin, isn't that right? Shiro told me years ago, supposedly what would happen if Rin's mind and heart would get taken over by the flame. Just keep that in mind, you don't want to be a human killer."

Yukio nodded. He was now both in Rin and Shiro's shoes. Forever on fire, and not 100 percent taking a liking the Vatican, or listening to them.

"Okay, so why now did you decide to help me learn to control my flames?"

"You have to learn how, same as Rin. It's the only way you two can come back together, as force to be reckoned with against Satan, and just so you two can be around one another again. You aren't aware, but security is tight on you at the moment."

"I'm Satan's vessel though."

"I'm here to figure that out too. We will figure something out, so that he can't possess you."

"Does Rin know about any of this?" Yukio wants to know, "Is my brother okay with this... me being here in London? You know how he is Kuro. He depends on me for everything. He's not going to take this well."

Kuro put a paw over his eyes and batted his tail, if a human he would of been running his hand over his face, a gesture done by stress.

"Before I stowed away on the helicopter to go to the airport with you Yukio, I was in the hall of the hospital, and I heard some voices in Rin's room." He shook his head, "I wanted to say goodbye to Rin before I left, I knew that day would be the day he would awake, seeing as his vitals were getting better, but the voices in the room stopped me. I didn't want anyone to know I was stowing away with you, instead of staying with Rin, so I just sat quietly outside the door and listened."

Yukio was intrigued.

"I heard a bunch of screaming all of a sudden, and above all of the shouting, I heard someone telling Rin that you..." Kuro trailed off, his face becoming sour, "that you were dead."

"WHAT?" Yukio stated.

Kuro frowned up at him, and hopped down to the floor. Yukio swung his feet over the side of the bed. The vinyl flooring was chilly.

"How is that logical at all? Do they know what that is going to do to him?!" Yukio felt twisting explosions of wrath inside, he wiped a few escaping tears from his eyes.

"I heard a few higher-up exorcists talking also here about how that will be good for the 'short brother', Vatican loyalists no doubt. They think that will push him to train harder, which is what the Vatican wants. Like I said- a force against Satan. That's the 'why' you were looking for. That's why I'm here. As soon as I heard my master yelping for you to come save him, I took off, ran down the hall and sprinted to your copter. Hiding before they had even loaded your metal bed onto it."

"A church organization of liars it sounds to me." Another realization hit him, "Rin was screaming for me?"

"Yes... for you to... help him."

His brother, Rin. That cheek he had held only for a second it seemed, those blue eyes, then darkness.

Skin a soft chiffon.

Devastated.


	4. Chapter 4

"I can't believe Yukio, er... Professor Okamura, would risk his life like that." Shima admitted, still horrified from the incident. "I mean, the scene still replays in my mind almost everyday." It was how Rin held Yukio's head as they were running to them that made his eyes well with tears, like how a little boy holds a pet rabbit, soft, close to his face, feeling the fuzzy fur. Yukio was, and had been precious to Rin.

"It might as well be just 'Yukio' now. He's gone Shima." Bon was sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of their temple, Shima's voice ached to be listened to, breaking his concentration. He plopped his elbow down on one knee, his face in his palm, the other arm touching his tender side, the stitches had just came out. His brown eyes opened, frowning, he knew they still weren't ready mentally to start chants again, ready to be back on track with training, with what their lives consist of, with what their lives are, and are going to be.

Konekomaru barely slit his eyes, and rolled them to the left, watched the two, but mostly Bon. For the three of them had been trying to meditate together, a daily morning practice for Airalists, those who are studying to become Aira Exorcists, he knew what Bon was feeling- stress. They had just went through something ungodly difficult, and they weren't 'okay' yet.

Shima unlaced his crossed legs, spread eagled them, and laid down flat on the stone floor staring at the wooden rafters, arms behind his head. He couldn't concentrate, still after three weeks, he just couldn't wrap his mind around it.

"Honestly, I'm glad I wasn't there, but it's hard to think that someone close to us is gone." Maru finally said quietly. He put his feet out too finally, and laid back on his elbows, staring at his bare feet.

"You wouldn't of wanted to see what we seen Maru, it was..." Shima went into thought, his arm slid over his face, "more heartbreaking than anything." He had never seen Yukio cry, none of the 'Highland Brothers' had, but in that situation Shima knew that Yukio knew, 'he was done', that he was over. "I've never seen... so much blood."

"That's the way it's gunna be." Bon's words were harsher than normal. "We're gunna be exorcists. Sometimes, people ARE going to die. It could be you or I next time, we don't know. I don't want to think what might happen, instead, I think all we can do is train." Bon was obviously the leader of the three, the most outspoken, the loudest, the most independent, and the one that his brothers looked to if in need. He had to say something to try to enforce their walls, "We have to do what we can to become better, so our chances, especially when we work in a group, excel."

"Bon..." Konekomaru trailed, staring off into the sunrise outside the window, "I know you're angry about what happened, especially that you couldn't do anything to help them, as you said, but maybe it's for the better."

Bon piped, "Damn right I'm angry." His grunted out, switching posture and laid on the floor like Shima had done, Maru's back to him now. "Out right frustrated." He sighed heavily and sucked in a big breath of air, letting it out slowly. "For the first time... in a long time... " He recalled back to when the blue flames hopped from one monk to another at his temple, (the temple that had been right before Yukio, Rin, and Shiro's), a strong feeling of helplessness overcame him, remembering, "I felt, like I was just in the way. What was going to happen before me... " He closed his eyes, hating the weak feeling, "was going to happen, whether I liked it or not."

"You can't control every situation. That's just the way it is." Shima breathed, running a hand through his magenta hair, he had just dyed it again the day before and began rubbing on the pink marks the color left on his palms, soon it would fade into that 'bubble gum pink' that he liked.

"With enough patience and practice, discrepancies can be eliminated." He piped.

Shima, "But when you work in a group, sometimes it's not you. It's the others around you. People make mistakes; even Exorcists."

"Then we have to train to make sure if someone messes up, then we came come back from it."

"Hey Maru," Shima's thoughts shifted, and so did his face, from staring at his hands and speaking with Bon, to looking at the boy, who actually was allowing his bald head to grow hair finally after nearly a whole three years, "What did you mean when you said 'it's for the better'." He was confused. How could it be better when someone's life was lost?

"Well..." Maru shyly said, "It's just some thoughts I've been having lately."

"Like what?" Bon asked. More and more, especially after their first year at Cram School, Konekomaru was coming out of his shell, becoming slowly more opinionated. It intrigued him, his shorter, quieter peer always had some sort of interesting point. He was beginning to see it more and more as a strength that he had that Shima and him didn't have as much- the ability to think 'outside the box'. All Maru needed at times was just some validation that the points that he brought up were useful, thoughtful, or interesting, and he was a happy chit for the rest of the day.

"Well, Yukio was a very hard-laced, tough person. A good teacher; and an even better Exorcist. He was good at a lot of things, and achieved two Exorcist titles. Already at fifteen, he was... how should I put this... "

"... a hard ass?" Shima blurted.

"Sure." Konekomaru wrapped his arms around his legs. "Think about it from an outsider's point of view though."

Bon quirked his head, furling his brows, trying to get the point.

"Rin has been living in his brother's shadow, and for his whole life, Yukio's been 'in the lime light'." Maru shrugged, "It's awful that Yukio is dead. I'm sure Rin is terribly upset, but Yukio isn't there anymore to coddle him."

"He didn't necessarily 'coddle' him, it was more so, Yukio just 'wore the pants' all the time. We all knew that he did. He had to." Bon stated, he chuckled, "I mean, with a brother like Rin, snoozing all the time in class, I mean the guy's a nice guy, funny and all, but he's just... not very smart."

Shima added, "I get it, you mean... Rin is sort of forced outside of his comfort zone, so now, he's forced to learn. He has to."

"Not just that, his whole personality is going to change. He might be the same in some ways when we get back to True Cross after our second year of all online classes, but... he has to be independent now."

"True Maru. Yukio isn't there to tell him to study, to wake up, to do this and that, to overshadow him, like a manager does a new employee."

"Right, Rin isn't this 'employee' of Yukio anymore, because I mean, we all knew that's how it was." Shima brushed up on Bon's statement. Shima knew the jest of their relationship was Yukio telling Rin what to do. He had seen Yukio poke at Rin with words, Yukio's face go bright red when Rin didn't do something he liked, he couldn't of even imagined what it would of been like to live in that dorm room with him; someone who tried to make himself out to be 'perfect', or if not that, someone who just consistently, and neurotically had absolutely everything in place, and if you stepped over his lines, crossed them, you would be put back into place. He didn't understand how they could even be brothers, they were so... different.

"I'm interested to see what's going to happen." Maru laced his fingers across his lap and laid down on the floor same as the other two. They all stared at the ceiling together, the three also the same age, all very much like brothers, although each very different. All fifteen.

"Yeah, what's going to happen to Rin? We are all wondering." Bon said under a deep sigh. He was perplexed, but in slight instability over it, in a mental struggle. He was unsure what all of this would do to him. Partially wondering also because of his rivalry with him in becoming a better exorcist than him.

"I'm worried for his mental health, but... I'm also confident that he's going to rise from this... " Maru stated, his words, profound in meaning.

Both Shima and Bon sat up slightly at that, just enough to stare over, upon Maru, his deep Japanese eyes, nearly black, unmoving under his glasses. That statement peaked Bon's interest.

"... and become the best exorcist we've ever seen..." Maru's voice shivered with his lips barely open, "... surpassing even Yukio himself."

* * *

"Yo, Yukio, it took me awhile to get back, but I finally have everything you need. A cat can't just carry all that stuff at one time." He squeezed himself through the small window crevice that the doctor had left open. 'He needs fresh air' that doctor had said.

Yukio opened his eyes, and lifted himself off the bed, much stronger than he had been a week ago. He had decided to stay hospitalized for one, big, main reason- he had been in immense pain.

 _Yukio laid in bed, as the doctors examined at him._

 _"No more internal bleeding. Looks like these stitches we can get out tomorrow." A doctor concluded. "What do you think about that Yukio Okamura?"_

 _Yukio just barely turned up the edges of his mouth. His new demon blood was healing him... very very fast._

 _"Alright, seeing as you still lack the ability to stand, I will prescribe you some sedative, and once your stitches are gone, you can file some paperwork and leave."_

 _No response._

 _"Just make sure you go with your friend downstairs."_

Friend. _That friend, is no 'friend' of mine._ It was 3 a.m. He spoke softly, in a whisper among the night, "Kuro, bring the flashlight over here." The little cat dug it out of a satchel he had just brought in through the small opening, put it in his mouth and dropped it on Yukio's bed. "Turn it on and put the beam towards a solid wall."

He did so.

Yukio realized the English Exorcists below must not of read their briefing that well, as they lacked that he was a Doctor Exorcist. They could take his guns, but not his doctoral knowledge: He could remove stitches on his own, bandage his own wounds, and even though he couldn't see exactly 100% straight yet, and at times his head spun... that wouldn't keep him in a hospital.

Once he had heard the stitches were ready to be removed, that's when he knew... it was time to leave. The medication he was still taking, he could survive without it, but just in case, he had made sure that he received a dose right before midnight, enough time for it to kick in so it would be easier to get out.

He stood up, stretched, and smirked, a little lie- one of the things that he had kept from the doctors, pretending he couldn't put hardly any weight on his legs, that he couldn't walk. If the Vatican was going to lie to his brother, then what point did he have in telling the truth to them anymore at all?

 _Fools._

Yukio grabbed the scissors he had Kuro steal and began his process, he popped the first stitch, and the thread came through his skin, as smooth as butter, when his checks for proper scarring were complete he worked quickly.

"Yukio, where are we going t'go?" Kuro whispered, questioning.

"We can't go back to Japan." Yukio concluded. "That's the first place they'll look."

"Is running from the Vatican even... smart? Or possible?"

He laced a cotton ball with alcohol, tensing, as he dabbed his skin with it, then began peeling off the excess, dead tissue that didn't need to be there. "Probably not."

Kuro sat on his haunches, his tail twitching.

"I don't know my plan of action this time Kuro." Yukio let a deep breath go, now wrapping gauze around his thin torso as he stood, arms going around his body with the white roll, like around an equator, it was quick, exact, fluid. "The Vatican telling Rin I was dead..." He snipped it off and secured it, "I can tell you... isn't something I planned. I want to find out why they kept me alive, but not at the risk of Rin seeing me."

"But don't you yearn to go back home?"

"Yes. I do. But, something is going on in Rome, at the Vatican, and I'm going to find out what it is." Yukio started putting on the gray jogging sweats Kuro found for him, and a plain white t-shirt. He zipped up a dark green hoodie, he spoke from the darkness under his hood, only his glasses, dark reflections, like pools of shiny, black, placid water. The flashlight flicked off.

"But then, why don't you want Rin to know you're alive?"

"Because... since I don't know the reasoning behind why they told him I was dead, it's not safe for Rin to know. What if they find correspondence between us? What will they do to him? And, that would make it easier for them to find me, or you."

The little cat gulped, scratching behind his ear and blinking nervously.

"Exactly, you don't trust the Vatican either do you?"

Kuro shook his head no. Kuro wasn't just not-loyal to the Vatican, he out-right disliked the counsel completely. Since he had been earth-bound, so many times, Shiro had told him stories of things that had happened there, reasonings within the organization. They played favoritism, they vowed things, then broke them, they pledged protection at times, but then couldn't even keep it themselves. Hypocritical.

Yukio grabbed the satchel and emptied the entire bedside drawer into it, yanking it out quick, like a thief would a drawer-full of jewels, dumping all his few personal possessions the Vatican left him with, and whatever else was in there, and nonchalantly tossing the wooden drawer onto the un-made bed. He flicked his glasses up.

"You sure about this?" He looked out, placing his hands on the seven inch ledge Kuro had came in on, then to the ground, from the six story hospital window.

"It's less noticeable than me becoming larger. Lemme tell you, nothing is more frightening to the public than an overgrown, roaring animal in the streets."

"Hop on Kuro." He felt the air on his face, wafting his hair, which reminded him, he needed to hide his ears under it, perhaps he would let it get just a bit more shaggy. Kuro latched onto his back, squeezing his claws tightly into the hoodie. Yukio could feel it, but at the same time his body was going numb, so he didn't care about that as much at the moment. He didn't have a fear of heights, but this was out-right madness! Could he possibly be... seriously considering this?

He was frozen, his body going through shock waves, his brain over-thinking, wild.

"Yukio. You aren't a human anymore." He could feel Kuro lifting up his hoodie and he felt his tail flick out from underneath it. The cow-like tuft whipped his face, and he brushed it back, whacking it away, annoyed, the thing didn't obey his will. "Stop fighting it, you're going to need it for balance."

He nodded. Sort of like a monkey he figured. Kuro latched back on.

"I tell you what Yukio, you do this, get yourself out of here, which is something I know you want to do, I will tell you a BIG secret." Kuro resulted in trying to tempt him, the information he was going to give was important as it was, but he used it as a lure. Had to. Yukio wasn't budging.

Yukio quirked his eyes. This little demon knows so much more than what he puts-on. "Percentage. Give me a percentage." His knuckles were solid white on the window frame, his Nike's locked onto the concrete, he stood then, the full length of his 5' 10" body outside the window, vaulted, standing, edging his way further away from the hospital room he had had. He still had no idea how many exorcists the Vatican had nailed down with 'watch Satan's younger twin son as he heals from being impaled' duty.

"You'll make it..." Rin was a better risk taker than Yukio. Yukio liked calculations, was a planner, didn't like jumping in head-first. Seeing as this was the most time Kuro had ever spent with Yukio alone, he was quick in seeing that they were different, he could see why they butted heads, so different in the very core elements of personality.

Yukio stood there. Wind blowing, his heart exploding out of his chest, breath puffing. "I could die."

Kuro brought up a great point, "You can risk your life for your brother, but not to save your own skin?"

Yukio looked to the left at the cat on his shoulder blade, hanging on. From under the hood he could see the green eyes probing for an answer. He was right. There was so much more to this life now, a mystery, and at the whim of the Vatican granting it to him, he realized, even his own death he wasn't in control of; the Vatican was so in-charge of his life, in-charge of his breath, his beating heart.

This one leap of faith, would set him on a path to control his own future.

"Just jump Yuki."

* * *

He was tired of rooting through shelves of momentos, out right exhausted of looking at pictures, looking at their childhood toys, his brother's clothing, his books, his extra box of eye glasses, his bullets, the guns. It was how he was coping, moving everything useful, practical, or something he had personal ties to into his closet, and everything else of Yukio's, into a donation container.

At first he had been so torn up, but now he was just forcibly accepting the fact: He was gone.

He knew he'd always remember exactly how it felt staring at his hands slowly lowering the first item to go into the cardboard box a couple days ago; Yukio's three white dress shirts:

 _So crisp, so nicely tailored to his brother's wider shoulders and long torso, the shirts looked baggy when he tried them on, that tall physique of Yukio he never got._

 _The buttons were sewed on so tightly, and it smelled like Yukio's laundry soap, the kind he hated, but now yearned to sniff floating in the air from the wash. He buried his face into the fabric, into a forced hug, sobbing, leaving the shirts wet, using them much like tissues, the cotton padding his cheeks. Minutes later, making sure not to unfold them, he delicately placed them in the bottom, letting tears leak down, and drip over, watching the fabric soak the drops up._

 _The blood leaked from his nose into a pool of pulsing red below him. Yukio, his body taken, laughing sickly in the background. A blue fire, screaming._

He winced and growled, frustrated, torn by that thought.

The past couple weeks drained him. Sadness mixed with anger. Anger mixed with thoughts. Thoughts mixed with outright rage, an uncontrollable flow of tears, and an absolute... guilt. _Had that really been the only way? Yukio? Could you of made me do anything else?_

 _Please. Yukio. No... no... Yuki. You're (cough) stronger than this._

He slammed his fist into the desk, practically bending the top of it into a different shape, cracking the finish. His demon strength was back, and the thoughts, the bittersweet thoughts. Inescapable. His mind fluttered with them, was littered, covered, encased by them.

Trying to calm down, he forcibly stared blankly, he had gone through all of it. It was done. Four boxes worth in three days. He sat in the desk chair of his room, a face void of... everything. Forcibly void. Forcibly empty.

Yukio had been there for their old man's death, a shoulder to lean on, but now, what really did he have? Who did he have? Monk Hatsuni? That one was definitively, and mostly a man of God, who kept his nose buried in the scripture. Monk Nutu? Even though he felt slightly closer to him at heart, Nutu was never around, he was the monastery errand runner.

He stood and scratched his arm emotionlessly, and walked to the little wooden box sitting by the window sill. In it was a chain, a military ball-chain, on it he had found old American army tags.

He and Yukio, the orphans living at the monastery, when they were little, would get boxes donated to them of clothing, food items, and money. Shiro would let them root through the boxes, and keep what they wanted. Rin had found the tags first, and so he kept them.

He would play 'Army' with Yukio. Yukio would be the 'guerrilla war propagandist', Rin would be 'an army dude'. At that time, when they were about six, it didn't matter how much smarter Yukio was than him. All that mattered was that their relationship was pure, loving... fun. They were kids, and they did what kids did: they played.

 _Yukio would puff his little chest out and waltz around addressing Rin, 'What will you do now... Sargent Smith?'_

 _'I'm gunna bust outta here! You wait and see!' Rin pretended to be tied up to a pillar in the monastery._

 _'We shall_ _see_ _about that! Ha ha ha!' Yukio 'fake-laughed', and pushed up on his glasses, his one true fear when he was a boy, breaking his glasses._

 _Yukio's dark-framed, square glasses, reflecting orange sunlight... and specks of red..._

Rin angrily fummed with the chain in his hand, roughly threaded the tags off, and threw them across the room. They slammed, making a loud racket as they hit the floor. Every damn time. Harmless thoughts, into broken, bloody images.

It was all he thought about. When will it end? Like torture.

He began threading new pendants onto the chain, each one a 'cross'.

One of brass, with a silver angel mounted into the middle, delicate vines and roses swirled the edges; a symbol, the rosary cross once on his old man's chain, the one he considered a father: Shiro, and the best chance in this world that he could of ever had. Had his life been in another's hands when he was little, he would of went from foster home to foster home; became ingrate of the system. But like the thorns, Shiro, a hard-laced Exorcist, and like the soft tender petals, nurtured his outrageous nature as a child. Loved him.

The second, and the shiniest of the three, a bright, unscratched silver, with Mary's immaculate figure moulded into the center. Like the veiled woman that she was, perfect in her ways, and in her imagery, so was Yukio. The second cross, the one from Yukio's rosary. One of his daily routines in the morning was polishing it before he left for class.

 _The white tie, that when tied correctly, bears a black cross on the knot, the one that exorcists wear with their 'Black Shirts', the formal uniform of the Japanese Exorcists, to make them appear as 'priests'. So pure and perfect. Like Yukio._

 _Ripped and soaked in blood. The silk tie crunched as he threw it in the trash._

He gritted his teeth, bringing a shaking wrist to his wet eye, and shivered, threading the last cross. Sick all of a sudden. The thoughts sometimes sickened him.

Plain and made of ebony wood, his cross, from the rosary given to him as a boy by Shiro... that he never wore. It described himself... this dark force. Everything about him was like that: He was a demon, he had an explicit history, notorious for getting to fights, arguing in school, he carried a sword with him everywhere; he had stabbed and killed his own brother with it.

 _Black eyes with only a teal outline._

He twitched, lashes batted quickly, angrily.

A loving person, he knew he was, much like his ocean blue eyes, but all the bad things he had done, resulted in this blackness, like the dark hair on his head and tail, like his fangs, his pointed ears, his cross bore his personality of the family- the black sheep. He put the chain of crosses over his head, now he had them with him, everywhere he went. He felt the small crosses pat against his chest, in and out from his gait. Walking to the boxes, and picking one of them up, the crosses laid on one of the top flaps and lazily moved side to side again, the ball-chain long, to where it hung just below his chest. Getting a last look at the new pendants on the chain, he made his way downstairs to set the box outside for the donation van.

Not just their memory, but much like their gravestones at the cemetery, he had their plot-markers around his neck. He couldn't help but add his own cross, for he was a part of the family, the last surviving member of the Fugimotos. His thoughts were tainted with scenes of Yukio's last hour, of blood and fire, and slowly, they were making him more numb as the days went by, numb to the grotesqueness, the reality: that the real world isn't pleasant. Instead it was a battlefield, between good and evil, and much like the dog tags once befitting the chain, his family, dead soldiers from this war. The war of humanity and the supernatural.

Being a Fugimoto. It meant imminent death. It meant blood, physical and emotional pain, darkness, and an unnaturally beautiful haze of blue flame. Like an angel.

For Satan, had in fact been an angel. A fallen one. And Rin would do everything he could to make sure this certain fallen angel would be put away where it could no longer move.

Like a god in the sky, Rin dreamed of a blue flame that would come down, and consume the evil. For as long as he was alive, he would fight to be that flame.

His world, even if ending with a fiery hand around his throat, if his body was iced over, frozen in time, burned alive so hot that it was cold, at least others would know he died trying to fulfill a righteous, justified, vengeance. A sickly sweet want. A want out of his loss, out of his love, out of his broken heart.

His soul felt like it was emptying out... ever so slowly becoming numb. And the worst part was: he knew, and he accepted it. And before long, he wouldn't have to force the numbness on his soul and mind to deal with the bloody memories of the loss of his twin brother... instead... his soul and mind would just be numb.

Until the end.


	5. Chapter 5

Yukio and Kuro weren't out searching for answers. They were taking a much needed break instead. All of June they had been moving non stop around the city trying to figure out ways to acquire a means out, a bus ticket, a flight they could stow away on, a train ticket, something without gaining the attention of the Vatican. To get to Rome, to sneak in. It was harder than they had originally thought, and simply walking wouldn't get them there, period. It was across countries, how were they supposed to get across the English Channel? They couldn't just walk across it, the Vatican counsel, ever so smart in their planning, in their placement of him here, on an island. He spat at it.

They still hadn't left London.

Needless to say, Yukio was beginning to feel like a failure, and that never happened. He always achieved what he wanted, by the time he wanted, and that left him aggravated, red-faced.

"This would be easier if the Vatican hadn't confiscated my blessed keys." Yukio's frustrated thoughts became words. He thought, of the past month, hiding in different places, sleeping inside empty hotel rooms, space hopping, he had been forced to let go of some pieces of who he was in order to keep hidden.

With Yukio realizing his newly gained strength, the hospitalization only a past memory, a long scar on his stomach, not even red, but only a long white mark, he and Kuro could easily hop up stories high onto balconies of buildings, break latches on doors without making too loud of noise and sleep inside for a few evenings at a time. And just as easily, with a quick bend of the stainless steel, Yukio could mould the latch back into form as if it had never been bent/broken. The staff at the hotels would never know. Never in his life would he ever of wanted to do this, would of resulted in this: a fugitive.

He felt like a bum, a street rat; they had no money. Of course the Vatican paid, being an Exorcist wasn't just a 'charitable' title, but his funds had been cut off. He didn't even have access to his bank account, his wallet gone, no cell phone, no accessories to help him, to help them. Stealing was all they had, going to a homeless shelter would get them noticed.

"That's true enough." Kuro laid on one of the beds, stretching, licking, straightening a patch of white fur on his arm. They had turned in early this time, ten o'clock at night, and they had already found a room, Yukio was just laying on his back on the other bed in sweats. He had stolen more clothes as the month had went by, clothing that before he wouldn't bothered wearing. He figured that would be the best way to hide. He knew that the Vatican knew he was meticulous in his clothing and appearance; another thing he had to let go of.

For most of his life, he wore clothing of strictness, of a trained exorcist, a professor, a professional, and if not that, clothing similar to school uniforms in his relax-time: khakis, sweater vests and pristine, clean, spotless white long-sleeved collared shirts. He had never owned a single pair of sweatpants in his life.

Rin wore them all the time, walked around with no shirt and clunky looking sweatpants. His lazy brother. He smirked, his thoughts moving onto the ex-wires.

"I had a key to every place my ex-wires lived." He went on, trailing about the magically blessed keys, keys that only Exorcists of certain titles and jobs were allowed to possess. Keys unique enough in shape, small enough, much like skeleton keys, that once you put them into any lock, in any door, anywhere, and gave it a quick turn, that the door would open to the door the key was blessed at, like a portal. A person could put the key in any door lock at True Cross Academy, turn it, open the door, and the door would/could open into a different place, anywhere in the world. "I had four for True Cross's school grounds; one to go back to the monastery. One to the Vatican."

"Like 'magic' as they call it in the demon world, 'blessings' you call it here." Kuro stated, now sitting up and staring at Yukio. His face was tense.

"Each world has it's own form of supernatural 'ness' to it. I studied that when I was becoming an Exorcist." It had been at least seven years ago when he learned that, about eight years old, it was written in some of the first text books he had studied in Cram School as a boy. "I know that already."

"But do you?" Kuro stated, his tail whacking on the bed.

"What?" Yukio sat up partially on the bed, rolling to his side, the lights on the city across his body. He could see Kuro's eyes sort of glowing in the night, how all feline's eyes are, reflective. Except instead of glowing white, as cats of Assiah's do, their reflective color was red, that of a demon, of a Gehenna native. What was this cat speaking about?

"Do you really understand what that means?" He made himself a little bit larger, about the size of a panther and laid on his side, and pulled the blankets over him, so that he could stare at Yukio, look at him, the same size bodies, like equals, from bed to bed.

There were 'human-like' gestures the cat did sometimes, which helped Yukio realize, he really wasn't just a 'cat'. He in fact was a living, breathing demon, a non-animal. Intelligent.

"When you made your first jump, out of the hospital window, I told you that I had a secret to share with you." Yukio hadn't brought it up to him since. Kuro figured maybe the jump itself was too much of an exhilaration that he forgot all about his words.

Yukio fummed with the ring on his left hand, moving it around his finger in circles with his thumb, listening, his body uncovered. They collectively had been doing so many things to acquire a means out, he just didn't have the time to ask. He figured it could wait. He was more interested in finding a way to the Vatican.

"Shiro, your father, my old master, he was a great Exorcist. He also bore different meisters like you do. You have a Doctor and Dragoon Title, he had all five, years of hard work and stamina it took him." He blinked, the red eyes looking left and right at Yukio's moving eyes in the dark, watching him, watching each other. For now Yukio could see in the dark as well, and his eyes, even though in the daylight, a seagreen teal, in the night they glowed just as Kuro's from the reflecting cityscape: a blood red. "He bore so many titles that it was only natural that he was the one who re-wrote the Cram School textbooks."

"My father was very intelligent, and to him I owe much of my knowledge."

"Yes true. It was only a couple years before you began going to Cram School that Shiro finished rewriting the texts, placing in new information, new techniques, geological, health, sexuality issues. Shiro wasn't just an multi-meister exorcist, he was a scientist, and someone who always sought for a better understanding. Which is another reason as to why he was so liberal in his everyday ways, it wasn't just due to him not taking a liking to the Vatican's rulings and principles, it was because he WAS finding out better understandings of things than any other exorcists had known before about demons."

Yukio nodded his head.

"And that was because of me."

Yukio squinted his eyes, taking it all in, listening.

"You don't know much about this cat." Kuro chuckled an odd, husky chuckle. "You know how old I am?"

"No." Prompt.

"I'm 176 years old. You know, Mephisto is going to be 200 here in a couple years. Shiro was in fact my first human conjurer. He opened a portal, and by surprise, he sucked me through. Shiro also hid the fact he had a familiar, on purpose. There's a reason for that, you didn't even know I had been his familiar until about a year ago. You see, that's how it is with familiars, all animal-kind of Gehenna are familiars, either to another demon or to a human, being a human's familiar is much much more rare, you have to be 'portaled' in order to be so. Unlike animal-kind here in Assiah, where they are simply 'just animals'. There is a difference in worlds."

"Are you saying that I should view demons and Gehenna creatures, floral and fauna alike, as... aliens?" He was raised under Catholic terms, under Vatican principles, under the assumption that there is a good and an evil world.

"There is no up and down Yukio." Kuro's voice tremored. "Shiro understood it as such, but he couldn't teach it that way, he couldn't write it that way." He cleared his throat. "Shiro knew so much about demon kind because of me. That I told you already. But it was through my loyalty, the loyalty a familiar vows to their owners, that I told him these things. But you see, it wasn't just Shiro re-writing the texts then, it was also me. For years of Shiro's life we prepared texts together to rewrite the ways in which exorcists would view the demon-kind. To evolve the exorcists to become more men and women of understanding, not of medieval theories of 'heaven and hell'. That was why I was so broken over Shiro's death, he and I shared common views."

"I'm guessing then that you didn't succeed in some cases."

"No. The funding of the texts for Cram Schools... is the Vatican. Which means they can copy, paste, and erase, whatever amounts of it they wanted. Much like how King James edited pieces of the Bible... called it the 'New King James version'."

"So much of what you learned, even though some of it was left from what we had written, was edited. That's the secret Yukio."

"I always felt like in some cases with the texts I had to read between the lines to make some sense of things." Yukio remembered quite a few times when he was stumped over something and Shiro would simply say 'think about it' or 'read between the lines Yuki-boy'. That was why. Shiro wanted him to know, but he couldn't teach him because of the Vatican.

"Shiro hoped that you were adept enough to understand, to question, to find the truth, the true meaning, in some cases you were. Shiro and I would have discussions about your learning. I have to say I'm quite impressed, with how far you've come along."

"Just as Shiro, you've been there our whole lives?"

"Yes, I've known both you and Rin since you were little babies. I was Shiro's familiar for nearly 60 years, until his... untimely death." A hint of sadness made itself known in Kuro's voice. "Just the same we would have discussions about Rin, not necessarily based around his learning and skill as our chats were about you, but more so ideas on how to handle him. I wasn't just Shiro's familiar Yuki, I was his best friend."

"A cat. His best friend." Yukio blew air out of his nose, huffing. "Makes sense, he never seemed lonely. Answers my question on why he never married."

"He was too busy." Kuro rolled over in bed more. "Yukio, I know you have the mental stamina it takes to conjure a familiar. Why have you not done it?"

"It would just be in the way, it also doesn't fit my meisters." He stretched his arms above his head to relax, but instead his tail flicked out, and he started whacking it back, as if a fly. It wrapped itself around his wrist. Yukio growled, "I don't know how to make it obey." He felt his whole spine twitching as it moved, the sensation was awkward. He would just tape it down around his torso like a belt, it was the only way he could concentrate on anything without it flailing around, tape it down, pretend it didn't exist.

"I can teach you. I can also teach the information from the real re-written textbooks, the ones before the Vatican altered them, that is, if you want to know what it's really about... being a demon."

Yukio was silent. Thinking.

"As a professor, I was teaching from these books, I had learned from these texts myself. So the whole time, even though bearing a more truthful take on demon-kind, the Vatican lied."

The cat ran a paw over his face. Yukio was really seeing, and bearing the weight.

"I was teaching lies Kuro, and I didn't know any better."

"Well, not all the texts were lies. The books that remained unchanged were a few. The ailments books they left, so all the ailments you know for your Doctor Exorcist title are true, and are real, as you've seen on missions, it's like a medic in the military what you are, you can heal others with then knowledge you've gained from demon-given illnesses and injuries."

"And everything else?"

"Yukio honestly, you taught the ex-wire primary classes. The core books were mostly unchanged."

He breathed out a sigh, sort of content that he was about it, "But then what of my ex-wires this upcoming year?"

"There are things that are changed, that aren't true, that only a truly unique-study of a pupil would be able to figure out or question."

Yukio felt sick, his insides turn.

"I know you feel the same way about knowledge that Shiro felt, and how I still feel." Kuro sighed looking at the ill look on Yukio's face, his eyes becoming heated under his glasses, a light blue aura around his, just a light mist, formed. He was angry. "I'm placing my hope in you Yuki. If I teach you things the texts can't about demon kind, vow to me that you will teach it openly to the ex-wires. Start a revolution. I'm not asking you to be Jesus, I'm asking you to help them. Gehenna isn't what it is. It's not as it seems, and with the backwards teachings of the Vatican and religions in Assiah, there is no other way for them to know."

"Why are you so adamant about this? Is it just because you and Shiro's will didn't get implemented and now your livid?"

"Yes, irritated, but also upset. We both were disappointed. Demons aren't all bad. We aren't... we just have a vicious dictator ruling us."

"Satan."

Kuro nodded.

* * *

Shura was sitting on the ground of the monastery, literally on the ground, as floorboards had been blown completely out, drinking a beer while the monks wore tank tops and shorts, slaving in the summer heat repairing the floors, walls, and some alter areas. Hammers were being pounded and nails could be heard dropped on the floor occasionally, the monks chatting with one another about where things should go.

Shiro Fugimoto's death had rocked the place, and not just in an emotional standpoint, the monastery was completely destroyed in some places still on the inside. The twins had helped put things together quite awhile back, but they didn't have much time because they had to go to school, and so there still was so much work that needed to be done. Satan's attempt to take over Shiro's body, but in turn killing him, had warped the monastery into something similar looking to a tornado's aftermath, a deathly and cold reminder of the bastard and it's power.

For Rin it was worse. He wanted no reminders of Satan, and with his bloody memories of Yukio an everyday, all day stringing, series of occurrences, he was doing what he could to numb himself, and in turn, it was actually making him numb.

He was purposefully erasing. Keeping his mind occupied on other things.

He had painted his bedroom upstairs a color Shura never thought he would choose: yellow. And he completely rearranged all the furniture. And the books on the bookshelves. Planted purple pansies in pots, which were sitting in the windowsills, and he was actually taking care of them, watering them. He transformed Yukio's old room into an entertainment room for the monks. Painted it an ashy green. It was a library. And he had convinced the monks that 'television' was okay, and even though they swore to keep the 'devil's light box' upstairs in his own room, Rin put it in the new entertainment room anyway. He even threw out the drapes with little 'toy cars' on them Yukio had still had from his childhood, and replaced them with just a simple sheer white curtain.

Rin walked by then shirtless and sweating, double teaming carrying a pew with one of the monks, one on one end and one on the other. Everything on the inside was ashen; building the monastery was just another step in Rin 'fixing' himself as he called it when Shura had questioned.

Shura took another sip of beer.

Rin and the monk stopped and they abruptly slammed the pew down, dropping it right in front of her.

"Hey, what's da big idea? I'm sitting here!"

"You gunna help or what?" Rin put his hands on his hips. His voice bland. She had been here for nearly a week, showed up at the front door. She was one of the bearers of bad news.

"Hmm. Construction isn't my cup of (she shook her can of beer) tea."

Rin rolled his eyes and dead-eye stared at her. "Well the Vatican ordered you to be here, and whether you wanna be here or not, you're here, and you're officially a part of this house. Contribute... or leave." Solid words for Rin.

Shura chuckled, he was doing what he could to preoccupy his mind off of Yukio's loss over the summer. At least that's what he told her.

"Temporary member there, horns." She struck a pun at Rin's blue flames, when they came out on the crest of his head they indeed looked like horns. She really didn't want to do anything except enjoy the sun the blown-off roof provided, and sip her cold one. She yawned, and stretched and put her hands behind her head leisurely to get the point across.

A very tiny amount of Rin's flames sparked up, and his eyes flashed for only a split second, the smallest few seconds he knew he could control their variation to get the point across. He was mad, not just at her right now, but her in general. "Get your ass up."

Shura twitched her face abruptly, surprised.

"You don't know how long you're gunna be here Red." Rin frowned "You're my live-in 'sister' for as long as the Vatican wants you here."

She irked then at the word 'sister'. He was already figuring out how to press her buttons.

"And, since I'm the only one that cooks around here... help out or no food. Or you can go spend whatever money you might have left on beer. I don't give a shit what you do. No help, no bed, no food." He shoved his one talent in her face, cooking, and followed it with his temper.

Nobody in that monastery could cook except him, and Shura was the worst out of all of them. She shrunk in dismay. She burnt hard boiled eggs. Rin didn't even know how it came to be entirely. He woke up about 2 in the morning and she was asleep on the floor, and she had left a pot of water and eggs boiling, probably for hours. If Rin hadn't of woken up, they would of had yet another disaster on their hands, one involving fire trucks and a burning building.

"Fine." She chugged the last of her beer and stood to slap dirt off her tiny jean shorts that she liked to wear.

That was the only way to get the lazy woman to do anything, make sure she knew where she stood. She needed to eat, right?

Rin pulled his shirt off of a neighboring pew and threw it at her. "Put it on."

"What? What's wrong with my clothes now?" Shura was attractive, distracting to most, and she knew it. She made a cute kissy face.

"You'll get cut up carrying things Miss." The blushing monk that was helping Rin chimed in, nicely smiling.

Shura thought about it as Rin took off his gloves and threw them for her to catch and put on, the crosses on his necklaces jangling slightly.

"Fine, fine. You men just can't handle having a woman like me around! Oh ho ho ho!"

She admitted, she liked the smiley, loving, stupid Rin better than this new persona he was taking on. He was always so blunt now... and... empty.

She had only been here a week. What else was going to come of him? She squinted her eyes at him, watching him effortlessly pick the pew up himself, leaving the monk behind to grab a bucket of nails and follow.

His strength was back from being injured. She swore she'd never seen someone carry something of that size themselves before.

* * *

"I miss him mom." Sheimi said over her lemonade. Her pink flowered Kimono shimmered in the sunlight. They were sitting outside having a nice luncheon. Cookies, lemonade and sandwiches. "I'm so used to Yuki-chan coming the most through June and July. He needed the herbs we sold the most during this time, the summer, when he would go on the most exorcist missions."

"I'm still missing Shiro." Her mom said putting another cookie on her plate.

Her mom had had such a huge crush on Shiro Fugimoto.

"I still wish I'd see his face come through that door." Her mom smiled. "Yukio too." She nodded at her daughter. "He was such a cute boy. It's so sad what happened."

"I just wish I could of had the chance to say something to him." Shiemi had became good friends with Rin, Yukio's brother, and as for 'Yuki-chan': "I just wish I could of told him how I felt."

"Hmm?" Her mom stopped drinking lemonade and looked at her questionably. "Oh... Sheimi." She cooed as her daughters eyes welled with a few tears. She rushed to her side and on her knees began wiping her face dry with a napkin. "You liked him didn't you?"

She squeaked out a small 'yes' under her breath.

"Well." Her mom gave her a sad look. "That's something we both have in common." She could sympathize, "That Shiro, what a woman wouldn't of gave to have a man like that on her arm."

Shiemi nodded, "Yuki-chan was so... perfect."

Her mom sat beside her on the blanket listening to her.

"He was so tall, compared to me at least, and I thought he was so handsome with those few freckles on his cheeks. I had known him for so long."

Her mom nodded her head, admitting that the adopted boys of Shiro were definitely 'lookers'.

"He seemed so grown-up in everything he did, and every time I seen him I felt so embarrassed."

"Is that why you never told him that you liked him?" Her mom asked.

Sheimi took a sip of lemonade, "Yeah. I always felt like such a girl around him. I was... shy."

"Well, that was my problem too. Shiro was a great man. When I lost your father years ago, I was so sad Sheimi, you were just a little toddler, and if it wasn't for your dad's mom, your grandma, I wouldn't have had anyone to help raise you. But I really fell for Shiro, he was always so kind, and funny!" She chuckled, remembering an old joke he had told her years back. "Sometimes in my head I can still hear his laughter."

"Yukio never laughed." Shiemi said bluntly, "Not unless he was around Rin."

Her mom listened once again.

"I knew Yukio and Rin had a tough relationship, Yukio was very dominant, and Rin is very... well... sort of... ugh." She couldn't place it.

"Daft?"

"That's probably the best way to say it." Sheimi frowned, she didn't like saying that about Rin. "Rin's so sweet, but yet, he's not very bright. Yukio was so intelligent. But yet, even though they had such a hard time getting along, Rin was the only one that could make Yukio laugh, and it wasn't even laughs. He would just chuckle at Rin's silly nature. It was like Rin falling asleep in class would make him mad, but then Rin would say something kind of dumb, or trip over something, and that he would chuckle at."

"Did that bother you?"

"I wanted to make Yuki-chan laugh." She rung her fingers nervously, "I was kinda jealous, because all he'd ever do is simply... smile at something I'd say. He was always so put-together, his appearance spotless, and... mysterious. Quiet."

"Hun, it's terrible what happened, but Yukio and his father are both gone now." She put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Boy, I would of given anything to make Yuki-chan laugh, just once... before he left us."

"You have such a sweet heart dear. Just be glad that someone on this planet, even if it was his brother that he barely got along with, made him smirk and chuckle a few times."

"You're right mom, I'm glad in those few moments... Yuki-chan seemed happy." A small tear ran down her pale cheek, her big blue eyes soft, but smiling.


	6. Chapter 6

I have to get books today." His voice was bland.

"So?"

"Get up." He threw the church van keys at her. Surprisingly, she caught them. She had drank six cans of beer before noon, and he had hurled them at her face at mach speed. He wasn't old enough to drive just yet.

"Stop chucking things at me, and maybe I'll think about." She threw the keys point blank into the waste basket next to the desk for effect, paper crunching inside of it under their sudden weight.

Rin squeezed his eyes in. His hair had grown slightly longer, and Shura's natural color was starting to grow out. It was red, of course. But it wasn't as saturated of a red as the hair color made it. It was just a normal red.

"I have money."

"Hmm?" Shura instantly stopped drinking her beer, and swallowed what was left in her mouth. She wasn't sure what was going to become of this. Was he going to dangle money over her head in an attempt to make her do something? "Not again horns. The church is enough. No more favors."

Rin frowned deeply, and darkness under his eyes somehow grew darker in the afternoon sun.

"Hair color." That was the only words he muttered.

Shura's face paled. Her weakness. "No." She sucked the rest of her beer out of the can, snapping the tab off, crushing the tin in her hand. Next, she tossed the can towards the same waste bin that the keys were in, launching the can airborne, like a basketball shot.

It missed.

The can bounced off the edge and landed on the carpet, some beer leaking onto the floor.

"Whoops." She stared smugly into Rin's face. She obviously had done it on purpose, seeing as she had just made the previous shot. It was an act of defiance to show the teen that she wouldn't bend to his will. Plus, they were still working on the church, one thing at a time out of Shura. Not multiples at once, no way, no how.

"What are you? Four?"

Shura snorted.

The only verbal exchanges they held were battles over control. But for Shura, these battles were growing more meaningless as time went along, she just wasn't getting her kicks out of them they way she did at first, and she knew exactly why:

* * *

She was used to not being congratulated. The Vatican never says thank you, job well done, bakes you a cake. Instead, she was a hired gun, a work horse, who never got to see the fruits of her labor. After she'd kill, hunt a person down, do this, do that, they'd ship her off somewhere else. That was life. That was how it had been for years, Fugimoto had asked her to join the Vatican, at first she was reluctant, but after she joined, she realized that was the only place she really fit.

Shura had never held a job. She had never worked anywhere. She wasn't good at make-up, she didn't have the patience for college or high school for that matter, she didn't like to read, she didn't... care.

Rin though? He was the smiliest, light-hearted, encouraging kid she knew of, aside from that chipper blonde ex-wire. He always tried to help people, he always made others smile with his antics, he hi-fived friends on their hard-work. He still had his youth, a youth she hated acknowledging, because she was slowly pulling away from it herself.

Expecting it. That was what made her trip on the inside.

* * *

 _Rin said nothing, not even a glance her way, as she put on her normal, 'Look at this! Look at me!' show._

 _For the first time, the red-head had done something, and was doing something that she was actually proud of. While she never got recognition before, and nor did she care... This time she did. When Rin didn't compliment her on her work, because he was the person she wanted it from, and because she actually desired it..._

 _It left her speechless._

 _His action of ignorance soaked into the very fibers of her being. Instead of her being pissed, she found herself abnormally begging inside:_

 _Rin, would you just look the stairs I built?_

 _The teen had actually made her frown. Her chin fell, and she counted the number of nails that had been pounded into the floorboard._

 _An ego, a rigid, solid wall of brambles, set up to protect herself, to shut and block out what she didn't want, to lift herself up on a pedestal, instantly became a limp balloon._

 _Rin had punctured it just enough. The air came out, her wind-bag deflated, and she shut up, grasping and understanding what true, real hurt looks like:_

 _It presented itself in a form of darkness under his eyes, with a scowl across his mouth. Everything, everyone, it was all so meaningless. Doing things just 'to do', working with a face unchanging._

 _In two months, the pain had molded him. It re-made, it conquered, and the previous: a jolly demeanor, had become stored away. Rin was nothing more than an arid landscape of a person, an absolute deserted wasteland._

 _She could elicit no emotion from the boy._

* * *

Her orders were to be here. The almighty and great Shura, the queen of all swords, but the only things she was the queen of lately was getting splinters in her fingers. She ran through multiple conclusions in her mind.

 _It was just... that working makes me pay more attention!_ It focused her on her surroundings, develop a since of innate pride, and that's why she cared about what Rin thought about her work! Rebuilding the stairs with Monk Nutu was a great example!

Or, that she wanted her self-image of a hard-ass to be confirmed by everyone around her. _That's all! And everyone should know it!_

Or, because she desired to have that 'I told you so' moment. Watching Rin's eyes widen in understanding that she was awesome, to boost up her own confidence. _I could of been doing stuff if I wanted, rather than sitting around drinking beer and being forcibly 'told' to do stuff! Take that Rin!_

After that, she even stuck out her tongue in her mind, a much added emphasis to the fake scenario.

As she had seen only his backside, a black shirt fully drenched through with sweat, making it that much more blacker, she absorbed nothing but his hollowness. She had been dissed.

But... why did she feel like she was lying to herself?

It was because...

She was.

Here's the truth that she tried to avoid so adamantly: She sought approval and validation because she was beginning to see Rin as a younger version of herself.

Rin was everything that she was, a cookie cutter copy. He was a poor-learning loser at his age, so was she, even as much as she told herself she was 'amazing', 'so cool', 'fun-loving', what friends did she have now at the age of 25? Rin had more friends than she did. Rin was good at cooking, she couldn't boil an egg (the event 2 months ago revealed that). He was also so incredibly strong, she wasn't, this adventure had just taught her how to hammer a nail in straight.

Instead of letting the darkness over-shadow him, he let all of his faults, be his faults. He lived them. He sucked in school, but he still went. He wasn't that smart at building things, but he still did all the heavy lifting for the monks. He sucked at household duties, but he learned to cook, and shared that with others, she remembered Yukio telling her that Rin had cooked for them everyday in the dorms.

Rin made light of his idiocy. He acknowledged he wasn't the best, and he tried to still push past it. Shura didn't graduate from high school or go to college. She had drank a beer in quite a few countries, and had sex in countless places... but those aren't accomplishments. She used to think they were accomplishments, but not anymore.

* * *

The outside struggle and fight over power with Rin, it was lessening. It wasn't... as heart-racing, as fun. The bickering, it was becoming less fulfilling.

Shura was beginning to inspect other things, things she had put off for so long: her since of 'self'.


	7. Chapter 7

7

"Yukio."

"Hm?" He turned his head to the left, blinking, then rising his lids almost sleepily at the black cat.

His fur was so shiny. The familiar took pride in cleaning himself; he had spied him multiple times licking his coal-colored fur coarsely. Eventually, it would air dry, and the straight, once damp paths, would disappear.

They both sat under a hooded balcony of a run-down pub, overlooking a phenomenal view of the more historic part of London. Slowly they'd worked their way to the edge of the city, scrimmaged through a junkyard, as if a pair would run, slipping under and around broken automobiles like someone would in a zombie apocalypse. Carrying only what belongings they needed left them wise, and light-on-the-feet.

It was fallout for them. The wreckage had provided them ample protection from blabber-mouthing commoners, police, anyone that seemed a threat. Rabbits they were, ducking in and out of holes, avoiding all life, on purpose.

They had nobody, except each other.

The Vatican's reach? They had no idea how far it expanded. Any random drunk could be a cohort. It was their prerogative not to dabble in excess anywhere too long, with anyone in England.

'No words, No image.' Yukio had kept that concept since the day they escaped, ducking in hotels.

"Yuki?" Kuro repeated.

"Yeh." He pushed the bridge of his glasses up with his index finger. It was drizzling heavily, specks of water remained on the lens, illuminated like tiny globes. Giving up all hope of keeping them clean, he simply bared the fact that the small droplets made his view of their environment concave, and the rooftops of businesses appear like liquid.

"Was the last time..." Kuro finished licking, and hesitated, "the rain..."

"Yeh." Yukio cut him off, curt and abrupt. Deja-vu was creeping in, a passenger in his mind, that propelled an emotion so heavy, that it seemed to weigh down his sense of mobility. He was pinching his lip, trying not to think.

The last time... Satan had infiltrated his body. He had watched his body move... by itself, on it's own accord, with someone else in the passenger seat, who had set his form on fire. Then his sight went black, only to open again to a disaster. His eyes seen the unimaginable, like a view through a strange kaleidoscope: his brother, white, a purple tinge to his lips. Wet. Dying. Choking.

So much blood... so little time as the reaper closed in on him.

When it started to shower profusely, Kuro sensed something was wrong. Since Yukio had become a demon, (and in the same way that he could with Rin), he could feel a more definitive drone from him, a drumming buzz. It was an attachment, a pitched link that spanned between all demon kind: The ability to not only speak with Yukio finally, both orally and telepathically, but also, a more defined sense of 'emotion', strong, similar to how a chemical evaporates off of skin.

"I know you're crushed."

Pulling the string tighter on his hoodie, it crunching and closing down into a smaller hole around his freckled cheeks, he let it slip as he played with the sapphire ring on his finger:

"I... I am."

Yukio for some reason, didn't seem as focused on factual information as he normally was. Kuro could see breathing, the air moving through his nose in quick drags, his chest under thick clothing heaving. Only one logical thing made since: he was fighting. Something was on his mind, and it was proving a challenge.

"Want t'talk?" He gawked, concerned. They had been silent for a few hours prior.

Yukio brought his knees to his chest, his arms around sweatpants. A gesture unlike him. His chin jutted out to rest in the gap between his knees, his glasses off, closed. A companion, and a dynamic 'crisis alert' partner Kuro had proved himself to be. A comrade in this crazy slavery he felt from the Vatican. His innate ability to 'understand' both puzzling and perplexing.

"I trained so hard." His lips suddenly spurted, a downcast shadow framed and outlined two shallow, under-eye spaces, thin, and malnourished. "I molded my behavior. I adopted all the morals."

The cat nodded.

"I was grateful that his blood-thirst would end at my hand... and not in anybody else's."

"Mm." The purring stopped.

"Yeh." He let a long, slow wad of spit swirl in the inside of his mouth before he swallowed it. "His ability to..." He considered his choice of words. "love."

Kuro listened intently, not sure where he was going with this.

"I seen... innocence, by living so closely with him. When..." Yukio laid his head down on his knees. "I had been so callous."

"What're you sayin'?"

"That there's two sides to my 'absence'." He put emphasis on the word, acknowledging the fact, but using a less dampening word to describe the mutiny of the Vatican faking his death. "I must find out what's going on in Rome... but..."

"But?" Kuro was on his toes. This was what he had stowed away with Yukio for. He wanted to know himself what was going on. Yukio kept switching from emotion to fact. Thankful just for this brief instance of the teen speaking from heart, he hoped someday he'd be able to manage a more emotional life rather than living like a drone. This situation. It was right in front of Kuro, it had left them both inconvenienced, and it was bringing things out in Yukio that he'd never seen before.

"The chance of Rin becoming the human-killer. It's the highest it's ever been." Yukio turned his head the other direction and laid it down, not facing the familiar at all. His blurry vision lay fixed on one particular rooftop that had a reddish-brown color for shingles. "This, this 'death' of mine. Could prove to be a climax." A tail moved under clothing. He ignored it.

"Do you mean to say... that from Rin's heart-brokenness, that he'll foster an intent to kill?"

"If he lets it make him bitter. I, I don't know why I didn't think of this until now. I guess... " Yukio sighed. "I guess I was just focused on what we were doing." There was defeat in his words.

"I don't think... Rin, Rin would do that. Compassion runs his flames Yuki." The little cat kind of stammered, bewildered that the demon aside him said such a thing.

"Damn it, I mean, how do you know Kuro?" He snapped, facing him again, a flash of lightning making his features instantly white, then black. Enough for Kuro to see a look of panic across his face. "This is something that is ceaseless! Something that no shaman can shake a rattle over, that no bandage can heal! I thought that he might of been torn up, but the more I inspect this in my mind, the more I realize that this one tremendously vile, controlled move of the Vatican, it could unleash what I thought Rin had somehow shackled, and turn him into something barbaric."

"Yukio, I don't..." He was unable to grasp it. Rin his playmate. "I don't want to think that."

"I'm sure you don't. I don't. I feel evermore, that I am back to where I was mentally with Rin over a year ago! All of this... it's wiped away all the progress. It could destroy Rin's behavior. He's a demon... he might become the horror from the books I read as a boy. That'd I'd been trained to kill."

"You forget... You're a demon now Yukio."

"Yeh? But I'm an exorcist. I'm a harden soldier, a used tool. Rin? Rin's!" He barked, a mixture of emotions so complex that Kuro couldn't place them all. "Rin's... Rin's not! He's this soft shell... and this turmoil," His teal eyes, intense, the black orbs in the center meeting Kuro's green with a type of seriousness nobody could understand, "It's going to break his back."

Kuro spoke, getting firm, remembering that one tear Yukio shed at the first realization of his death being faked, and Rin, being left alone with this news. Yukio had wiped that tear away so... fast. Mechanical.

He tried to strengthen Yukio's faith. "Give Rin more credit." His slits narrowed. "Rin's been a demon longer than you, remember that too."

"But does that make him able to deal with this?" Thunder grumbled, adding to the flavor of environment his words: angry, stark.

"Not necessarily... but since Rin's been a demon longer, he knows how to deal with his gift of the flame. He knows it's his rage that causes it to flare. He's spent nearly a year, and he's made some progress, a little, but not a lot. You haven't even started to touch-on the beginnings of the fire yet."

Yukio forced air out of his nose and looked away, slamming his glasses on so frustratedly, it seemed as if he would break them. Getting tired of not being able to see. It reminded him of recent past events. If he was to behold Rin's broken body at any point through those spectacles, some strange vision, that would plummet him in this very moment.

"What's more important to you Yukio?" Kuro blurted. His words were calculated. He had been curious. He wanted to hear the words spoken into the air. He figured if Yukio heard himself speak those words, in his own voice, then maybe, that'd shed more light on the situation.

"What?"

"You heard me. Does a cat have to speak it again?"

Yukio didn't respond.

Kuro realized now. He knew what was going on inside of the teenage boy's mind. "What's more important to you?" The cat slowly spoke, as he watched Yukio look distantly off over rooftops, covered in sheeting, gray rain, every shape looking dull against the overcast sky. "Finding out what's going on at the Vatican, or your brother's sanity... chancing he'll become a serial killer?"

"I..." Yukio's mouth fell slack.

His mind raced in some many directions. The Vatican, he so desperately wanted to know. Why the hell would they save him? Especially after Rin did as he wanted, that enraged him to no end. It had something to do with him, it had to. If the Vatican didn't want him alive, they wouldn't of saved him. They wouldn't of allowed him to live, especially with the fact that he was Satan's true, if not 'truer' vessel than his brother.

Then there was Rin. Yukio knew. It was more than knowing. It was feeling. The looks, in the touches, his brother, Rin... he knew he'd change. The touches. The looks would change. He thought at his death that he'd perhaps become an exorcist, excel, Yukio seen him obey, by stabbing him. But the fact that Rin was in inadvertently lied to? Rin didn't know, he went on living his life as if his brother was dead.

Yukio didn't want the Vatican to hurt Rin, especially knowing that they lied to him. It had to of been purposeful. But, Yukio knew...

"If I choose a path of selfishness... I go with you to Rome Kuro, to the Vatican, to attempt to find out what is going on... because that involves what is going on with me, then I choose to allow Rin to continue to believe I'm dead." The sentence ended with a hitch in his throat, a swell of something which suddenly made him stop talking.

"And?" Kuro ushered for him to continue.

"At first, a few months ago, when we were escaping that hospital, that was all I could think about. It coursed through me like a deep anger, I wanted information, and I wanted it now. I was impatient, I'm used to having what I want." Yukio continued. "We haven't had much success getting out of London. Our slow progress, albeit, it is progress, it's given me some time to think." He sighed. "It's given me nothing but time to think."

The rain got louder, heavier, and began to bang over their heads. It was hailing, the storm awful, and more amplified.

"So what's the other side of it Yukio?" Kuro spoke louder, practically yelling over the atmosphere.

"I'm concerned. What if we go to Rome Kuro? Then what?" Yukio got louder to match the feline.

The cat shook his head, licked a paw.

"Like I said, that means Rin goes on." He got a little showy with his hands, something else very unlike himself. It showed his disgust for the idea as he spoke it with a chill, as it escaped his breath, like a curse itself. "Rin goes on without a brother! What about that?!" Yukio's words sizzled. "What if I don't find out what the hell's going on in Rome? It's been two months Kuro! Two! And we just made it to this side of London! Ridiculous!"

Kuro was taken aback at the cussing. His demon companion, never had he seen him this wild in his words.

"How long is it going to take us then to get to Rome? Rome is in Italy Kuro! Italy! I don't have my blessed keys! I have nothing, you have nothing."

Lightning struck down flashing incredibly bright for a second. Kuro seen a single tear rounding Yukio's cheek.

He was so mad, but yet was still trying to control himself, being Yukio, he let only one fall, another single tear.

Watching Yukio mourn to Kuro, seeing that one singular drop leak down over his freckled cheek, it spoke oceans. It was all he'd let himself do, and it was enough to get his point across. Kuro was quickly learning that even though withholding of most physical emotion, that when an action showed through the barrier, it meant ultimate turmoil under his skin.

"I feel that if I decide to be selfish... Kuro..."

Kuro had already been watching him, but this time, his eyes widened at Yukio's silhouette, dark and shadowed. Haunting.

"How long's it going to be?"

"Long?"

He quieted, as the rain got softer, but the lightning remained flashing all across the sky and grumbling like a dragon.

"How long will it be until I see him again?" Yukio's voice swelled with a distinct, deep-welled disgust.

How dare the Vatican do this?! How dare they do this to him! How dare they do this to...

 _Us._

"Years... It'll be years." He hushed.

"It seems like the question you need to ask yourself Yukio, is, what's more important? Suddenly seeing Rin... that look on his face? After it being years? Him thinking your dead... he might not accept it, as reality."

He responded instantly, "I wouldn't."

"What d'you mean?"

"I mean... if it was turned around." Yukio wiped his cheeks feverishly, cleaning his face entirely of any trace of his tear. "If Rin was dead, and then he came back years later, I wouldn't be excited. I'd be..." He snorted. "Furious."

Kuro crunched his eyes in.

"Why not come back immediately?"

"Yuki." The cat voice.

"Hm?"

"I'm proud of you."

"What?" Yukio turned. That statement caught him by surprise.

"I am." The familiar breathed. "I was never close to you. Some of it was how you weren't a demon, that made it hard to communicate with you, but there were other reasons. I had a difficult time relating to you because you were so... selfish."

Slience. Eyes unmoving, stuck.

"Yukio, I'm blunt. I'll say it... The first time I really seen an unselfishness from you was when you let yourself die to save Rin, and all his friends, everyone really. It was heroic, and dangerous, but you did it. It was a major sacrifice. But now? Yukio, you may not notice it on your own, but before the ultimate sacrifice you committed, you never would of considered Rin's well-being at all. Admit it."

He moved his mouth like he was going to say something, then snapped it shut.

"The whole reason you hounded Rin so badly with his studies is because you wanted him to be a good student, so he could become an Exorcist, to serve, it was your will, not because you thought it'd be good for him personally. I mean, I'm sure you figured that any 'learning' would serve and do Rin some good, but the root of it was selfishness on your part. Also, the fact that you were trained since you were 8 years old to kill Rin. It was selfish. You can say all you want, that it was for the 'good of humanity', but Rin told me about that incident awhile ago now. He tried to give you a simple hug, and you pointed a gun at his head. You were scared. You'd do it, if it meant saving yourself."

Teal eyes wavered.

"I was never close to you even more so because I never understood why you were an exorcist. Okumura Yukio. So successful with two meisters at fifteen, with an unimaginable secret duty of having to kill your brother if he went wild, so quiet as a person, and a good study. The girls, they love you, the boys wished they could be you. You were the weaker one when you twins were younger. You wanted to excel. Being an exorcist appealed to your inner most, personal desires."

The rain poured and the Yukio remained like ice, still, a block.

"Do you want to know something about Rin?"

A low hum came from Yukio's throat.

"Rin put himself through all of it, all of the studies you wanted him to do, all the flame training that he was so bad at. Not even with studies, but with cooking, with his personality. He did all of it..." Kuro sighed. "Because he wanted you Yukio, his little brother..."

Yukio turned away, a frown laced with grimace. He already knew what Kuro was going to say.

"To be proud of him."

Yukio sniffled and turned to Kuro again his eyes floating around the area the cat was in, but not actually looking at him.

"You could say all you want, because I've heard you say it in the past, that this is somehow 'making you weak'. Blaming your true, real emotions, on the situation, looking at it from an outside perspective. Or you can just accept that this wasn't something you'd planned on, the Vatican doing what it did, and for the first time in your life... that you're beginning to care about your brother. True, real, care."

Thunder growled.

"That this situation is actually beginning to make you consider the feelings of others around you."

Yukio's throat was strained, his breath stuttering. His voice spoke, and it didn't sound like Yukio, for it was a voice so deeply intertwined with feeling that Kuro almost didn't recognize it:

"How... can. He be so selfless?"

His mind, lofty in it's thought. How was it possible? He thought himself as the elite twin for so long. The one who learned faster, was smarter, who was inclined to do more things in life, who served a power that was logical, that was helping others somehow, resolute and worthy.

All of it was crumbling around him.

His persona, Kuro stirred things inside of him that he pushed away, and never had time to inspect. It was like he knew it was selfish, but he was lying to himself, telling himself it was to help other people, those he considered his friends, his own brother.

It made him slightly sick. He had used. Used even, his own brother as... a scapegoat.

"He is, he just is." Kuro simply stated, scratching his head with his hind foot.

"I don't want..." Yukio breathed in so deep. He was accepting. "that... destroyed."

"So, that's what you choose?"

"Yes." The glare in the reflections of his glasses made patterns in his eyes.

Kuro nodded.

Rin. His brother...

 _Like a soft chiffon. Blue._ A blood-stained hand falling from a soft cheek. Then... nothing at all.

Never would he of wished this on his worst enemy. So evil. As a few months had went along... He knew it. He knew that Kuro was right. Everything was changing, and as much as he didn't want to admit it, to hold so tightly and closely onto his old life... it was over. He was now one of the very things that he had seen as abominations.

It was ironic how once you become one, a demon, yourself, how your whole perspective changes.

Yukio wasn't ready to give up his upbringing, to uproot himself from his training, to let go. But he was no longer seeing the Vatican as his moral grounds. When he was a human, it held him to his rights. But, now? Now that he was a demon, and seeing such vile efforts of the church? The only morality he could think of, training, was to throw it all out, and start over. Sure, he still wanted his guns, those ivy laced familial weapons, he'd retain his knowledge. But... Kuro even said that that had been toyed with, the books and educational tools a sole hack-job.

So... Who was he? What was his title? Did it matter?

Okumura Yukio, Exorcist? But wasn't he 'missing in action' from the church itself, which went against his meisters when he pledged unfailing loyalty? Was he Okumura Yukio, Professor? He was, but everyone thinks he's dead. Gone. Okumura Yukio, Demon? Something he wasn't entirely willing to accept just yet, and the kind that he killed thousands of, at his hands alone? Does that mean that he is now somehow, a murderer himself?

The only thing he knew at this point... was to follow his gut.

His instinct told him...Okumura Yukio: Brother.

Rin, his lazy, silly, and sometimes incompetent brother. Snoring in the classroom, drooling over a manga in bed, asleep once again. Then wide-eyed, eyes filled so full of deep sea that it seemed impossible to grasp the depth, looking at him, that vision of him eating a popsicle, smiling, and laughing at his awkwardness.

Yukio, he just, he couldn't stop. Rin had spied him, staring, and, called him by name. And?

He smiled in response.

Only one time. A small, graceful smile.

That's when it first dawned on him. He knew why it was his last vision before his death.

Innocence.

He seen it, right there... he seen it. Vast. Spanning, across his brother's face. Pale, like an empty moon, pure like the evening sky.

He was taken in it, in that moment. It was a reminder of childhood simplicity, before everything got mixed.

Forever, Yukio knew, he'd remember.

His last image. His last scene.

It was Rin.

It'd always be Rin.

And it'd never escape him.

It was imprinted in his soul.

 _You're more important to me..._ _than myself._

 _You are the only thing that feels right in this world._

 _I'm coming. I'll be there._

 _I'll find you._


	8. Chapter 8

8

"I've followed the guidebook... finished reading instructions for core classes. Some of the curriculum is a mess." Shima retorted speculatively, his manner proud, gaining a bit of gusto and energy from the idea, from that moment he'd be able to enroll in online schooling for the first time next week, even with it being 9 at night, when he should be getting tired instead. "I'm not taking Physics just yet, what a sloppy syllabus."

Bon leaned away from his laptop to look at Shima's screen. "Have you uploaded an avatar yet?" He swatted a few hovering bugs away.

"No. Not just yet... Have you?" The laid-back teen seemed not as worried about it as the other, relaxing, finishing off his lemonade.

"Mm Mm." Bon, shook his head. He was known to be extensive in his education. He didn't necessarily do everything by the books, however, as was a good student, he'd make 100% sure everything was perfection before he started his first semester as a sophomore, even if it was simplistic tasks, like making and uploading a custom avatar for his True Cross web-account. He grunted. "This avatar stuff, it's... old technology, and annoying."

"Hm?" Konekomaru, the only one in pajamas, and Shima looked up at him in that moment.

An obvious, puzzled look was furling in his thick eyebrows, and the dimly lit, open-air awning where they sat, even though slightly distracting from the lazy buzz of cicadas, provided a clear enough view. His hair, uniquely dark brown on the bottom, with a blonde faux-hawk on the top, just... wasn't there. "I, I can't seem to find anything that fits."

Shima gazed over hazily, panning his eyes, and erupted, causing Maru to jump.

"Ha... HA! OH! I never thought I'd... haha!

"Would you shut up Shima!?" Bon balled his fight.

The paler boy just continued laughing. "Why, ha, ha... why don't you just, just... choose something close-ish?!"

"I... I don't understand! Why couldn't we just take pictures of ourselves?" His fist slammed into the table, knocking over Shima's empty lemonade cup.

"You're right... that'd be easier." Konekomaru chimed, sighing, adjusting his glasses.

"Shh, yeh." His chiseled jawline frowned, then looking away from the pink headed, laughing moron, to look at the other: "What does yours look like?"

Maru slowly rotated his laptop, lids slim, looking defeated. "Plain."

Silent acknowledgement crossed the other two Highland Brothers.

It was.

A short haircut, which Maru dawned now, glasses, white collared shirt, black pants. It looked... like a run-of-the-mill uniformed student. As a matter of fact, it looked almost similar to the beginning instructional avatar, the boring pre-generated one; the one before a person changes it's clothes in the program's 'closet'.

"Uh." Shima leaned over, toward the shorter. "Are you okay?" He was more concerned about his peer's response.

Maru smiled shyly, that was all.

"Yeh! Do you hate this as much as I do... or what?" Earrings rocked back and forth, and arms crossed. Bon tried to give him that familiar push he always gave willingly so that Maru would feel confident enough to express his opinion. Eventually, he hoped, he'd just start giving it on his own.

"I'm just looking at everyone's avatars..." He sighed deeply, turning his screen back around, that bright LED illuminating his face, squares of white light reflections in his glasses, the other boys could see the screen changing in them.

Shima continued, browsing names in the True Cross student directory like Konekomaru. "Shiemi has her's up. It looks like her, the pink kimono, blonde hair with bangs, green eyes, really pale." He spoke as he typed. "Kamiki, Izumo." It loaded. "Ah... looks like her too, dark hair in long ponytails, that light yellow sweater she wears."

Maru gazed at Bon who in one motion leaned back in his chair, feet on the table, closing his eyes now, attempting to take a quick mental vacation, then to Shima. "Your's will look exactly like you... pink hair, brown eyes."

"Yeh, probably."

They continued to type in names of people they knew from classes, and finally: "Okumura Rin."

"He doesn't have his up either." Shima commented.

"Late as always." Bon grumbled out from under sleepy lips.

Shima chuckled.

"I... I've been thinking about what I said... about Rin. How he's going to change."

Shima: "It's going to be a whole year, you're right Maru."

"And a summer afterwards... It'll be a year and a half." Maru added on some math.

"Well, Rin will be... what?"

"We'll all be 16... and a half." Bon mumbled.

"Everyone's going to change so much, I'm just..."

"What?" Shima asked cooly. "That, everyone's going to be changing, and nothing's going to be the same as it once was? We'll all second-years for starters, I have less stress this year than last year, for sure. Even though..." He pondered. "it is kind of odd, how we won't be seeing each other's faces, for a year or so."

"Nah, I don't think that's what he's gettin' at Shima." Bon spoke, his voice kind of distant as he seemed to be drifting off. "You don't feel like much of an individual."

Maru nodded his head depressively. "I agree with Shima, I wish I could just see everyone's face. But, I also feel that everyone is either changing, or is on their own path to individuality all ready, and I'm just stuck here, in this void."

"Well... Maru, only one thing is certain in this world, and that is that change is the only thing that's certain." Bon announced.

Shima nodded in response.

Bon leaned forward a little, popping open an eyelid. "If you aren't sure who you want to be, what you want to look like, what you want to do, just... experiment." He closed it.

Maru's eyebrow twitched in response, his eyes moving from his computer screen to look down at his hands, sitting idle on the touch pad.

"Seriously. I didn't know if I wanted my ears pierced, and I just went into town and got it done one day, and I ended up liking it. But I could of taken them out at any time."

"That's right, I used to dye my hair a lot of different colors, remember?"

Maru nodded at Shima.

"I just stick with pink because I like it, but I never would of realized I liked it until I tried it."

Bon continued. "And these are just physical examples, this experimentation of self can span across many different things in your life. If you aren't sure what you want to do, why don't you take some classes this year through True Cross that you never thought of taking before? Maybe you'll end up liking something that you never thought you would."

"Or... you could go into town with me later on this week, after we apply for classes, and see what any of the businesses have to offer. I was thinking about getting a summer job!" Shima exclaimed.

"Really?" Bon's eye snapped open.

"Yeh? Why not?" Shima smiled, coming over and putting his hands on Maru's shoulders, not in a controlling type of way, but brotherly. "I'd like to gain some skills working, and I need money, just like everyone else."

Maru seemed a bit more smiley. "Well, it, it wouldn't hurt to try."

"That's the spirit!" Bon took his feet off of the table and sat up cracking his back. "Do whatever you want with yourself. You're in control."

Shima chimed in. "And the best thing is that you can change your avatar at any time! See!" He pointed to the button below it on the screen of his laptop. "Your avatar can keep changing just as you change and grow, just as we all will. And if you're worried about staying in touch, the school is going to provide all of us with everyone's email. So, no worries. Just write them and ask them for phone numbers, and we can all Skype each other once we exchange information."

Bon smirked. Shima was equally as compassionate as him, but he had the softness that he didn't possess. Somehow, between his rough bluntness, and Shima's soft-hearted directive, he knew that Konekomaru would turn out okay. In a way, as odd as it was, he felt that Shima and him were sort of the role models for Maru, the two that he looked up to the most. Maru was the smallest, and the most soft spoken, shy, and no doubt, if he went to public school, would be bullied.

He wouldn't want that for the life of him, and Shima, he knew wouldn't have that either.

No matter what changes Maru would make in his own life, Shima and Bon would be there.

They in fact, were brothers, even though not by blood, they were still family, and they always would be.

* * *

He sat outside, on a circular pad of cement, where the patio used to sit, before Satan had showed, and in the fire, burnt it to the ground. The big fenced-in backyard of the monastery provided him enough shelter to let out his tail, and that black, thin limb was slowly moving like a snake across the ground, close to where he sat.

Pitch black, the surroundings were illuminated by a solo street light which sat fairly far off.

She had simply been getting ready for bed, brushed her newly dyed hair, which was now one whole dark-red color, and she had just dressed herself in a night shirt and shorts, provided from some random box left at the monastery door-step. Apparently, donations like that were common, and weekly. Clothing, old jewelry, blankets, draperies, anything and everything that the commoners of the town didn't want anymore, and since the monastery had connections to orphan foundations, and families in need, what a better place to leave unwanted items?

She took some of the charitable donation.

Something was ill about his demeanor. That was what stopped Shura.

It was July, hot as hell, and he just sat outside, legs out in front of him, with no shirt, at 1 am. His shaggy black hair, nearly to his chin now, matted down with sweat, tail moving in kinks. There was no moon, it was cloudy.

What was being displayed to her, as he sat there silently, and she hid from behind a wall from inside the building staring out, watching him, was another dead reminder of the end of his enthusiastic nature.

He was fair in color, his skin she could spy from across the yard, milky in the night. The way his form sat, even though in a relaxed manner spoke of somberness, something ajar within himself. She wasn't sure what to do, or if she should do something.

Something snapped under her foot in the darkness, nothing more than stepping on a small piece of gravel, and she watched Rin's head snap in her direction. Like a command.

It sent absolute chills up her spine.

Two sudden eyes, glowing red, bright, like they were illuminated by their own brilliant flame of their own, were on her.

"I knew you were there." The words were deep, husky, hallowed. "Your breath."

He looked away, and the chill sent up her spine, lessened somewhat. Those eyes. On her. The eyes of the ones she kills.

Words came.

"I, I should of figured. You're big ears pick up more sound."

He snorted. "You just stop t'insult me?"

Obviously he took her words as a direct threat. It was all they did, argue with one another. How could he not?

Shura swallowed, and began walking forward through the patchy grass, she didn't have any shoes on, and could feel the dry, dusty dirt going between her toes as she hit a non-grassy part.

He made no movement as she came sort of close to him, and sat on the other side of the concrete, her feet off the 8 inch edge, in the dirt, she wrapped her arms around her legs. "What're you doing out here?"

The only response was his tail snapping on the end, padding the pavement evenly and roughly, the way an annoyed cat's would.

The city noise was very quiet this time of the night, and it was kind of delightful. Shura hated loud, noisy towns.

The answer came as a direct line, almost like he had been thinking her thoughts:

"It's quiet."

She let a little time go by, as she was unsure whether he even wanted her company before she responded. She wasn't sure what compelled her on, she knew internally why she felt a tether of relativity to him, but why she wanted to talk rather than insult? Not sure. She was growing tired of the insultory remarks, the little spats, it wasn't entertaining anymore. In other words, she'd had her fill, and what was left afterwards?

She'd never been exposed to a sole person that long. Never long enough for her to run out of her own steam, her own puns, her own fitful jists, the sarcasm. Her satchel of self-fuilling tools had been exhausted.

"What... is it like?" Her voice was hushed, how night naturally makes you want to whisper.

Rin turned, a corner of a blood red eye blinked at her. Obviously he wasn't sure what she meant.

"To hear... the way you do."

He turned ever so slightly, returning to the same position he was in. He spoke, since his head was away from her it came out much softer, not muffled, but light.

"There's no peace." He grumbled out.

"Mm." She acknowledged. She wanted to ask about Yukio for some reason, she wanted to know what was going through his head, as opposed to what she'd seen, but she didn't want to push it.

He already didn't like her, and she knew it. He ignored her mostly. It drove her nuts in a way.

"Are you ready for classes?"

He snapped back immediately. "Why do you care?" He sensed a hint of impartiality to her tone, and his own voice in return was frigid.

"I..." She pulled her knees closer to her chest, her sleep shorts were soft. "I was wondering." She yawned.

"Go to bed."

"I should."

He snorted.

After she stood, she worked up the gumption to actually say something to him worth while.

"Why the hell do you ignore me?"

He stood then, turned to face her, arms crossed, which looked slightly bigger for some reason, his red eyes on her form, tail snapping, a defensive posture.

"Because I hate you."

His language damaged.

Her eyes crunched in, and rather than spitting out a fire of insults, like she normally would of done, instead she stood her ground in a different way. In a more adult way, planting a seed for him to answer her. "Why?" She crossed her arms, mimicking him, just as perturbed.

"I don't get why you desire to hear it when the answer is right in front of you." His words, poised daggers. "You should be ashamed of yourself, for showing up here. You're despicable and you're lazy. You delight in stirring up battles, and I let you live in this household, if it wasn't for me putting the law down, you'd be not helping at all, and just sitting around drinking beer on a free-pass like you were months ago. You're selfish. There's no way I'm going to let you think that in anyway you're going to live here, for as long as the Vatican wants you here Red, for free. Also, your history is awful."

That last one struck a chord with her. "You!" She spat out, one on the fists that was crossed across her chest balled into a fist. "You know nothing of... of what I've been through!"

"Sure I do. Nothing. That's the answer. You're a smart ass, who travels the world in a self-seeking manner, killing things to make cash."

"That's!" It was all that came out.

It was true.

His demeanor changed again. He just grew quiet and turned away from her. Like all of a sudden, he just didn't care anymore.

"Go to bed."

She huffed and walked away, inside, slamming the door.

He sat back down on the cement and began whispering to himself under his breath. Agitated, as if he was talking to someone else.

"That woman does nothing, except become an insanity to me. This is awful and grim, I'm stuck living with the person who... who told me. My brother was..."

Silence.

"Is. Dead." He began to choke. Physical words cutting air out of him. "I can't escape her. Every time I see her, I see Yukio. Beaten, horrible."

Something inside him began to create a beckoning tone, and his face was hot. "Like, like... like his perfect. Perfect face. Like... he'd been smacked with a pipe. All I see are his stained eyes, stained with death."

Tears began to falter him. "They haunt me... they haunt my dreams, in the day, when I see her. There is no escape... He haunts me."

Slightly rocking, as if to calm himself, knees to his chest, he grabbed his 3-cross necklace in a frenzy, smacking it against him to confirm: 'YES. IT IS THERE.'

"Everyday I see your face... Yuk... Yukio." Tears. "Your crooked... last few minutes, they replay. I could be staring at nothing, and through my eyes, my head makes imagery... only, of you." He sobbed, he felt chills going up his spine. "Every time I remember something good, it's immediately followed by something bad. Blood. Your death."

He squeezed the crosses at his bare chest, then opened the necklace in his palm, allowing the three crosses, all different, to rock around. He peered upon them, and tears, hotter than that night in July, warped his vision, like a river of hot plasma burning his face.

"Yu... Yuk. Yuki." Whimpering. "How, how?" The crosses in his hands were wet, from the steady flow. "This world is... godless. I." He cried forcefully, and laid on his side, tailed kinking, he closed his eyes. Broken, shivering in the heat from his own course, rough pain, and panic. "You're my... brother, we were, we were... we were supposed to get better."

He sobs were so deep, they choked him, gagged him, rendering breathing useless.

Thoughts replayed in his mind, scenery that he knew now would never happen. He had dreamed so many dreams. Most of them including his brother, his... Yukio. Accepting his death, was like fiction. He seen the chain of events in his mind, and he spit them out into the air, as his whole body tensed and shook.

"We were supposed, t'to ride home t'together... and," he sniffled. "We, w'were supposed to," He coughed in pain. "come back here, rebuild. Yuk... Yukio. You... left me. I'm... I'm... Alone."

He shook in an intense draft of tears. Bonding, that was what he wanted. More bonding, he felt like he had gotten closer to Yukio in the past year, and that left him with so much desire to get even closer.

He let out his anger. Rage.

"You! You! Inverted jerk, with a thumb up your ass!" He got ferocious, teeth snapping. "I, I did everything! I studied. I wrote papers! I read books! I made myself available for you! I fed you! I trained my powers! All of it..." He got quiet again. Sobbing. "Surely... Yu... Yuki. You know. I..." He took in a huge gasp of air, letting it out rash and unevenly, causing another wave of hot wetness to flow. "I did it all... for you."

He cried for awhile and remained quiet, letting the cement wetten under him.

"I was heartbroken. After I found out you'd kill me... if you had to. And once I seen you starting to come around, all I wanted... was for you to like me more. I just... I wanted a real... connection to you. Like kids. Again. But... Yuki," He pleaded to the air as if his brother had awakened from the ashes right then and there. "we, we never... got the chance. I was never as effective as you wanted me to be." His voice came like a silent whisper only to himself. "I will be someone in this life... that will carry on our name... Fujimoto, old man. Okumura... Yukio."

 _My infinite guidance, I behold in your death._

 _Let my diabolic blood flow._

 _Because, it's all I have left._

 _"_ I will always be tied... to you. I will honor you."

He pulled his knees into his face, resting his head on his knees. His blue eyes, nothing but blood red, in the blackness, blurry.

"I know we never said it."

He sighed.

"I, I will... always." He pushed it out. The statement foreign and sudden. "I love you."

He sighed, letting an uneven flow shutter from behind his lips. Tasteless in knowing:

"From this day forward, I vow my loyalty to the Vatican."


End file.
